Israelis didn't Kill Mohammed al-Durra

That's the conclusion of a lot of professionals.

What's still not clear is whether Mohammed al-Durra's story was a tragic misunderstanding – or a spectacular fraud, intended to stoke the fires of anti-Israeli hatred and establish, in the public mind, a moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli soldiers.

The original footage of the incident was produced and distributed to news organizations world-wide – at no cost -- by the government-owned France 2 television network. Only one cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian, filmed the incident. None of the other cameramen and journalists present that day witnessed it. The France 2 reporter on the story, Charles Enderlin, was not at the scene. The information for his voiceover came exclusively from Rahma.

And

Juffa obtained testimony from “Dr. Joumaa Saka and Dr. Muhamad El-Tawil, two Palestinian doctors of the Gaza Shifa hospital, who said that al-Durra's lifeless body was brought to them before 1 P.M.” But France 2 reported that the shooting did not begin until 3 P.M. “How can someone be killed by bullets that were fired hours after he was already dead?” Juffa asks. He believes the answer is simple: The child in the morgue and the child in the France 2 report were different children.

What's more, Philippe Karsenty, director of the Paris-based Media Ratings, notes that Enderlin had initially claimed that the unedited footage included “the child's death throes,” scenes too “unbearable” to watch. But the unedited tape contains nothing of the kind.

This is not the first time the Palestinians have fabricated a movie about alleged Israeli atrocities. Melanie Phillips wrote about the fabricated Palestinian movie Jenin Jenin.

According to WorldNet Daily, a Palestinian film-maker who produced a documentary alleging that Israeli troops committed war crimes in Jenin refugee camp has admitted to falsifying scenes, using inaccurate information -- and, most telling of all, obtaining financing for the project from the Palestinian Authority:

'Muhammad Bakri, producer of "Jenin, Jenin," a documentary that claims Israel committed genocide in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, admitted in a deposition to inaccuracies throughout his film. The filmmaker is being sued by five Israeli soldiers visible in still footage in the film, which alleges IDF troops killed a "large number" of civilians, mutilated Palestinian bodies, randomly executed and bombed women, children and the mentally and physically impaired, and leveled the entire refugee camp, including a wing of the local hospital...But Bakri, in a deposition obtained by WND, admitted he "believed" selected witnesses but didn't check the information they provided.

'"I believed the things that I've been told. What I did not believe was not included in the film," said Bakri. When asked about a scene in which it is implied Israeli troops ran over civilians, Bakri admitted to constructing the footage himself as an "artistic choice." He also answered "no" when asked if he believed "that during the operation in Jenin, the Israeli soldiers killed people indiscriminately." In perhaps the most explosive element of the deposition, Bakri admitted his documentary, which was screened in theaters around the world, was financed in part by the Palestinian Authority. He said Yasser Abed Rabu, Palestinian minister of culture and information and a member of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat's executive committee, "covered a part of the film expenses."'

France and The BBC are all to happy to air anything that is anti-American or anti-Israeli regardless of it's authenticity. Dan Rather and CBS air a story using forged documents and the Mirror publishes fake photographs. Welcome to the media's "fake but accurate" world.

Headlines and soundbites are all that most people see and hear - regardless of the accuracy. Legacy media rely on the fact that most people are too busy or don't know that blogs exist to fact check them. I encounter people every week who have never heard of a blog. We can thank legacy media for that too.
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