IDF Major General Played Odd Role in the Affair
The assassination of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah in the Netzarim Junction, Gaza Strip, on September 30, 2000, refuses to die.
Even if not remembering the boy’s name, no human heart will forget the images of the terrified boy hiding behind his father in a futile attempt to avoid the flying bullets. Seconds later, the boy is seen slumped across his father’s legs.
Filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, the event was reported by Charles Enderlin of France 2 Channel, and reached worldwide resonance, becoming a key event of the Second Intifada.
Jamal and Muhammad al-Durrah Nonviolent Resistance in the Second Intifada
On June 26, 2013, a judicial process related to the event reached its end in France. Today, July 9, Israeli Settler Channel 7, revealed shocking facts suppressed until now by the Israeli Administration.
Paris Court of Appeals Rules
The case wouldn’t have survived 13 years without a judicial process keeping its fire alive. As often happens, the lawsuit was unrelated to the dead boy and his family. It was even conducted on a different continent.
Philippe Karsenty, a deputy mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine who runs media watchdog Media-Ratings, wrote on November 26, 2004 that the shooting scene had been faked by the cameraman, claiming that Muhammad had not been killed and that Enderlin and Chabot, France 2’s news editor, should be sacked.
The complex judicial saga that followed ended a few days ago. Karsenty was convicted of defamation and fined €7,000 by the Paris Court of Appeals.
Reporter Charles Enderlin was born in France. A Jew, he got Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return and worked as Chanel 2 reporter in Israel. Philippe Karsenty is also Jewish. He was portrayed by Settler Channel 7 as willing to help the IDF. In 2001, Israeli military officials stopped cameraman Talal Abu Rahma from traveling to London in order to receive the Rory Peck Award. They claimed this was due to concern for his life; this is an extraordinarily odd claim.
Problematic Broadcast
Reaching court was probably expected by Chanel 2. After all, their one-minute video broadcast had been heavily edited, and in a way that the fact could not been hidden.
This can be understood; broadcasting the agony of the boy’s last moments would have been violating his life for a second time.
However, certain facts were concealed also by the IDF, which played an odd role in the entire affair.
The day after, the Israel Defense Forces accepted responsibility and apologized for the assassination. Yet, on November 28, 2000, it issued a retraction when an investigation indicated that the boy was most likely killed by Palestinian fire.
This became relevant again during the trial, when Mr. Karsenty requested from the French Court to force Chanel 2 to release the entire video.
French Report Diagram of the Event
Gaza, Paris,… New York
At this point, everything looks evil but kosher. The assassins were indirectly attempting to discredit the video in Court. Everything looked decent because Israel was blocking a key testimony of one of its own.
The IDF’s Military Police is tiny. They deal mainly with what is mockingly known as “Operation Dressing,” fining or arresting soldiers who go home while dressed improperly. For the official investigation of the incident, the IDF asked help from the Israel Police Forensic Science Department. Police Lieutenant-Colonel (ret) Eliot Springer was sent; he worked under the direct supervision of Major General Yom-Tov Samia, Commander of the Southern Command at the time.
Springer’s testimony was suppressed by the Israeli Administration. As a police officer, he couldn’t comment without obtaining a permit from his superiors. He never got it. After leaving the police, he moved to New York, where Settler Chanel 7, claims that he is Deputy Chief of the New York Police Forensic Science department. After moving abroad and after the legal process in France ended, he disclosed the astonishing events that took place at the major general office.
There are two key issues in his testimony. He describes how he was shown the entire video, not the edited broadcast, only a few days after the event at the command headquarters in Be’er Sheva. How did the video reach the IDF? Neither the cameraman nor the reporter had ever addressed the issue. They never claimed to have been robbed.
The second problem is that the few people who had seen and analyzed the video claimed that the boy seems to be hit from an angle different from the reported. In other words, the group of IDF soldiers seen shooting are unlikely to be the assassins. It doesn’t mean that Israel wasn’t behind the death. It means that the assassin was a different one.
Protests in Place de la Republique, Paris
Covering up the True
The second issue awakes a disturbing question. The IDF had the video. Jewish collaborators in France had sued Chanel 2 attempting to discredit the cameraman and the reporter by proving that the video had been staged. The process in France got stuck for years in an attempt to get the video from Chanel 2. Why didn’t the IDF send its copy? After all, it was its own interest.
Interests or not, disclosing the whole video would have revealed highly classified—above top secret, deep within the colored realm of classification—methods of operation and the identity of Palestinians collaborating** with the Shin Beth.
Getting a copy of the video was probably an action performed by the Shin Beth secret police.
The videotaping of the assassination of a child and its broadcast worldwide are an excellent provocation. As the Settler Chanel described it: “the Western and Arab worlds are feasting on the blood of the IDF, they are waving the picture of the boy as the justification for the next terror attack, Palestinians are creating terror organizations named after the boy, and issue stamps commemorating the moment of his death. Israel found out that there is no more need of matzot to create a blood libel.”+
What was Major General Yom-Tov Samia hiding? Occam’s Razor is a principle of logic that helps in such situations. “Among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected,” it claims, or in simple terms, “the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
The events here look contradicting, unless assuming that the IDF was attempting—with the kind help of their Shin Beth blood brothers—to create a provocation that would enrage the Palestinians to such an extent that they would react wildly, allowing the IDF to crush with brute force the Second Intifada.
The plot failed. A boy is dead. His father is scarred for life. It doesn’t matter. “Our man in France,” as Israelis probably refer to Karsenty in private talks, “just lost €7,000. Those anti-Semites!”
full version at http://roitov.com/articles/durrah.htm
* “Mivtza Malbish”
** “Mashtap” is the colloquial name for a collaborator. It is the Hebrew acronym of “meshatef pe’ula,” literally “collaborator in action.” Their Jewish counterparts are called “sayanim”—helpers—and are an essential part of the Mossad’s activities outside Israel.
+ Blood Libel, “alilat dam” in Hebrew, is the general name of historical accusations that Jews kidnapped and murdered Christian children, killed them, and used their blood to prepare “matza” (unleavened bread) during Passover.
Roi Tov is a graduate—among others—of Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. In addition to his memoir, Tov is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Physics and other scientific journals. He won various travel writing and photography awards.
In his writings, he tries to reveal life in Israel as a Christian Israel Defense Force (IDF) officer—from human rights violations to the use of an extensive network of underground agents. He was recognized first as a refugee and subsequently as political prisoner of Bolivia.
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