Al-Dura Trial: Karsenty Wins in Paris

The truth emerges about Palestinianism, Palestiniasts, Pallywood and the al-Dura hoax. Via HonestReporting. com:

The iconic images of Mohammad al-Dura's alleged death in Gaza inflamed Palestinian sentiment and provoked terrible bloodshed. Despite the evidence that Israel was not responsible for firing the bullets that hit al-Dura, and doubts as to the credibility of the footage taken from the scene, this libel has continued to prevail.

HonestReporting has brought you the news directly from the trial of Philippe Karsenty, who accused France 2 and its reporter Charles Enderlin of knowingly broadcasting doctored footage of the al-Dura incident.

To recall, France 2 successfully sued Karsenty who then appealed against the verdict. At the appeal trial, some of the raw footage taken during that fateful day in Gaza was aired to a packed courtroom that witnessed numerous examples of "Pallywood" staging of events. France 2, however, only made available some 18 out of 27 minutes of footage that apparently exists.

Evidently, these scenes and the unreliability of France 2's cameraman Talal Abu Rahma has convinced the French appeals judge. Philippe Karsenty has won the appeal against his libel conviction.

Media commentator Tom Gross, who has previously reviewed (see our exclusive video) the al-Dura affair for HonestReporting, said in response to the verdict:

Today's ruling shows there are serious doubts about France 2's version of events, and that the entire world press - including the American TV networks - were irresponsible in being so quick to take at face value the claims of a local Palestinian cameraman working for France 2, a cameraman who has admitted his partisanship.

Karsenty said in a statement released after his victory:

The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information - especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions. One of Europe's most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a vicious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely.

Now it is time for France 2 to acknowledge that it created and is continuing to perpetuate the worst anti-Semitic libel of our era.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

At the time of writing, the full judgment had not been released to the media. However, Take A Pen's Endre Mozes was in the courtroom delivering firsthand accounts of proceedings to HonestReporting. Mozes spoke with some of the lawyers involved who had seen a copy of the judgment prior to its forthcoming release.
Amongst his observations and the comments from these lawyers was the court's acceptance of the argument that protagonists operating in non-democratic regimes such as the Palestinian areas are inherently less reliable and should be carefully scrutinized as should have been the case with Talal Abu Rahma.

Essentially, the court decided the level of doubt associated with the al-Dura footage warrants deep analysis. It is perfectly legitimate to question it, not libelous.

Philippe Karsenty's efforts have opened up France 2 to scrutiny and serves as an example of how the media should be held accountable for their material and the consequences of their reporting. France 2's al-Dura footage has been shown in court to be unreliable and possibly fake. Along with a number of investigations concluding that Israel was not responsible for the bullets that allegedly killed the boy, the icon that is al-Dura - the edifice upon which so much hostility has been directed at Israel, aided and abetted by a willing media - comes toppling down.

WHERE IS THE COVERAGE?

So far, despite access to Reuters and Associated Press wire reports, only Jewish and Israeli media have published the trial verdict. The mainstream media has regrettably remained silent. Is the same media that did so much to propagate the al-Dura libel without verifying the facts now too embarrassed to admit that they may have erred?

If your local media outlet has not covered this story, write to it and ask why not. While Philippe Karsenty has had his day in court, the State of Israel and all of those victims of the terror and violence fueled by images of al-Dura deserve nothing less.

Some of our own subscribers were not even in their teens in 2000 when the al-Dura case occurred and may not even remember it. Some of those who do remember have questioned why we should continue to pursue this case several years later.

We believe that, irrespective of how long it may take, the truth will emerge. Accountability and justice do not dissipate over time. HonestReporting will continue to hold the media to account and to revisit those cases where an injustice has been done.

COMING SOON - THE BIG LIES

HonestReporting will be bringing you the court's full judgment as part of a brand new interactive resource - The Big Lies. Using multimedia resources, including audio and video footage, al-Dura is but one of a number of case studies where untrue accusations have been reported as facts. This exciting resource will enable you to examine the lies, how the media presented them, and the real facts, as well as further resources to counter the next "Big Lie".

Israel Should Be the Plaintiff, Not the Defendant, in the Court of Public Opinion

From Israel Should Be the Plaintiff, Not the Defendant, in the Court of Public Opinion:

It is not about land. Israel is a hangnail-sized piece of land with no oil and no resources other than those produced by the sweat and brains of its inhabitants. Surrounding this minuscule plot, demonstrably the Jews' ancient homeland, are 22 Arab countries covering a tenth of the world's land mass, 640 times more land than Israel occupies. It is about Arabs' intolerance for any other people in their midst. In particular Jews. Instead of defending Israel's right to exist, the court of public opinion should be prosecuting the Arabs' crime of relentless hate speech and incitement to violence.

Follow the Sequence of Mideast Violence

From Follow the Sequence of Mideast Violence via DailyAlert:

There is no symmetry between Israel and Palestinian extremists. There is no Israeli action followed by a Palestinian reaction. There is no egalitarian share of the blame and responsibility, and the sooner this fact is understood by the international community, the better.

There is no similarity between a robber who attacks his victim, and the policeman who attacks the robber in order to arrest him. Sure, both may use violence. But are they equally responsible for it?

In the Middle East, there is a sequence of events, not a cycle of violence. It is a continuum which can be stopped at a moment's notice, by the Palestinians, should they choose to do so or should they feel the necessary international pressure to do so.

Do not call it a cycle of violence. The violence will end when the Palestinian terrorists stop attacking us. If they renounce violence, there will be peace. If we renounce self-defense, Israel will cease to exist. No symmetry.

What Can I Do About the Crisis Facing Israel and the Jewish People?

From What Can I Do About the Crisis Facing Israel and the Jewish People? :

There are things we can do if we are willing to work to protect our rights and stand up to the massive defamation campaign waged against us. Each of us can help by acting immediately whenever we encounter a distortion in the media, to correct it with a letter to the editor or news manager. We can also actively monitor the mass media on the Internet in order to correct as many distortions as we can. But in order to counter the endless flow of lies and distortions about Israel, we must first learn the true facts.

The Israelis are not colonists or alien "settlers" in the Land of Israel; on the contrary, we Jews have lived in Israel for at least 3,200 years, far longer than most peoples have lived in their present national homelands. Jews had lived in the Land of Israel in large numbers for at least 1,800 years before the Arabs conquered it in 635 CE.

While it is true that some Arabs have lived in the Land of Israel for many centuries, they have never been ethnically or culturally distinct from the Arabs who live in other lands, including the Arabian Peninsula. The Jews, however, are a people who originated in the Land of Israel and never had any other national homeland.

The Arab population of Israel/Palestine only began to grow in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, at the same time that Jews began to resettle the land. The Arab population of Palestine was under 500,000 in 1891, and grew because of extensive immigration from many Arab countries. As a result, many of the Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" have ancestors who originated in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and other Arab countries.

Israel has now withdrawn from 90% of the territories that it occupied in 1967, including all of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza region, large parts of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), and part of the Golan Heights. But these very substantial concessions have failed to persuade the Arab world to make peace.

Please assist ISRACAMPUS.org.il

From Steve Plaut:

Call to Arms! Please assist ISRACAMPUS.org.il.

I would like to ask your assistance in getting the word out about Isracampus.org.il, which replaces Israel Academia Monitor (now defunct) as an improved, cleaner and meaner, watchdog web site that exposes and monitors Israel's Academic Fifth Column.

ISRACAMPUS is an improved, professionally-edited web site that replaces the older web site (which suffered from amateurish and inept editing). It starts afresh in a new cyber-home, and contains a number of new features. These include "ALEF Watch," a segment of the web site that follows the anti-Israel shenanigans disseminated via the University of Haifa on the ALEF chat list, a list that includes open anti-Semites, jihadists, and even some Neo-Nazis. The new ISRACAMPUS also features "Van Leer Watch," which follows and exposes the anti-Israel radicalism at the supposedly academic "think tank," Van Leer Institute. And don't miss the new "Shmootz Corner," which will feature unusually candid anti-Semitic and venomously anti-Israel remarks by Israeli academics. Take a look for yourself, at http://isracampus.org.il/.

I would like to ask your help in passing the word getting the news out! Can you tell members of chat lists in which you are a member about the new web address? Can you print out the statement below and hang it on bulletin boards, cyber and otherwise, at your place of work, in your synagogue or school, etc.? Can you tell your local Jewish weekly about us and pass on the message below? Better yet, can you send US all information you have on the seditious activities of Israeli academic radicals and extremists?

ISRACAMPUS can be contacted at:
IsraCampus.org
POB 6652
Haifa
Israel

By email: isracampus@gmail.com
From: http://isracampus.org.il/about%20IsraCampus%20page.htm

Who are we?

A specter is haunting the Israeli Academic "Post-Zionist" extremists in Israel, and it is ISRACAMPUS (http://www.isracampus.org.il/). Modeled in part on "Campus Watch" in North America, ISRACAMPUS monitors and exposes the anti-Israel (and sometimes anti-Semitic) political activities, writings, and pronouncements of Israel's far-leftist academic extremists. Israeli universities contain hundreds of faculty members who ar e active in promoting boycotts of Israel, in organizing army soldiers for mutiny and refusal to serve, in promoting law breaking, and in collaborating with anti-Israel groups attempting to delegitimize Israel as a fascist, terrorist, racist, apartheid entity. Students, professors, donors, alumni, journalists and others participate in ISRACAMPUS and help it gather materials.

Until ISRACAMPUS came upon the scene, few in Israel and fewer still outside Israel were aware of the anti-Israel activities of these Israeli academic radicals. That is now changing. The past two years, when there were numerous attempts to adopt boycott of Israel resolutions in the UK, Canada, in the US, and elsewhere, it was ISRACAMPUS that exposed the fact that most of these resolutions have Israeli academic initiators and sponsors, faculty members who draw salaries paid for by the Israeli taxpayer, calling on anti-Semites all over the wor ld to boycott Israel.

The Israeli media and the Jewish press around the world are increasingly discussing and reporting about the shenanigans of "Israel's Academic Fifth Column."

Israeli academic institutions have been misused in recent years as platforms for radical anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic propagandizing, often by tenured radicals with embarrassing academic records and dubious research credentials. These include Israeli faculty denouncing their own country in the foreign press as "genocidal" and supposedly perpetrating Nazi-like war crimes, professors who publish articles proclaiming Israel a fascist apartheid state engaged in "state terrorism," lecturers who endorse Arab terrorism against Jews, applaud the Hizbollah, and call for Israel to be dismantled entirely.

While its web site has been in operation for only a relatively short period, the impact of ISRACAMPUS is already being widely felt. A gro wing number of reports are appearing in the mainstream media about Israel's academic extremists, "New Historians," and "Post-Zionists." Israel's Channel One television channel recently devoted a full hour to Israeli academic extremists and their role in promoting boycotts of Israel.

Israel's Maariv daily has been particularly courageous in condemning these things. Countless blogs cite and link to our web site. Israeli university officials are being faced with growing calls to enforce academic standards and put a stop to the political biases operating in campus hiring and promotion. Classroom indoctrination and one-sided anti-Israel courses taught by extremists are increasingly being exposed and triggering public outrage.

And the extremists are themselves growing wary. While no one is calling for restricting academic freedom and freedom of expression, even for the worst anti-Israel academic radicals , nevertheless these folks are feeling pressure as their activities are exposed to the sunshine. They know someone is looking over their shoulders. Over the past two years there has been a dramatic drop in the number of Israeli radical academics turning out anti-Israel propaganda for Bash-Israel organizations and web sites. While anti-Israel petitions, containing the names of hundreds of Israel academics, appeared in the past every few weeks on the internet, almost nothing of this sort has been initiated more recently. And in radical political "chat rooms" Israeli academic extremists are increasingly complaining about the fact that ISRACAMPUS is exposing what they write and do.

It is getting harder for Israeli university administrations to turn a blind eye to on-campus politicization, classroom indoctrination, and subordination of hiring and promotion to politically biased decision making. People are asking campus officers tough questions about how it is that so many Israel haters with insipid, sometimes downright embarrassing, academic records are being hired and promoted as faculty members and using their podium to demonize their own country. Voices expressing outrage against one-sided indoctrination, such as in courses purportedly about "the occupation," are growing.

ISRACAMPUS is the best way to "keep Israeli universities honest," and to ensure that their faculty engage in research and educating, rather than in Israel-bashing, sedition, and anti-Zionist political propagandizing.

ISRACAMPUS needs your help to stay in operation!