IDF spokeswoman stirs up a storm over a-Dura killing in 2000

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson, Brigadier General Miri Regev, clarified Thursday that she did not mean to disclaim IDF responsibility for the death of a 12-year-old boy, Mohammed a-Dura, at the start of the second intifada 2000.

She said this in her remarks on Army Radio about Israel's role in an explosion on a Gaza beach that killed several members of the Ghalia family two weeks ago.

"I didn't mean to state whether or not the IDF was responsible for the death of Mohammed a-Dura," Regev told Haaretz. "I just wanted to demonstrate that it's not a good idea if everyone in the world becomes fixated for the next two years on the idea that we were responsible for the death of the family on the Gaza beach before we finish our investigation."

Thursday morning's radio talk show dealt with differing versions of the Gaza beach events presented by the IDF Spokesman's Office and Channel 10 television news. Regev's comment about Dura was interpreted as an official disclaimer of IDF responsibility for his death in October 2000 - something about which senior officers have until now been divided."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/730661.html

[Englander]

1. The pre-spun version, from 2000;

'Tuesday, 3 October, 2000, 16:34 GMT 17:34 UK

Israel 'sorry' for killing boy

The Israeli army has admitted that it was probably responsible for killing a 12-year old-Palestinian boy on Saturday, and has expressed sorrow at his death.

Muhammad al-Durrah was shot dead in the arms of his father who was trying to shield him after they became caught in Israeli-Palestinian cross-fire near Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.

>snip

Israeli army chief of operations Giora Eiland said an internal investigation showed that "the shots were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers from the outpost at Netzarim".

"This was a grave incident, an event we are all sorry about," he told Israeli radio.

>snip

Mr Durrah said the Israeli troops had fired relentlessly, even shooting at an ambulance that had tried to rescue him and his son.

Its driver was also killed in the incident, and a second ambulance driver was wounded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/954703.stm

__________________-

ai report;

Muhammad Jamal al-Dura
On 30 September 2000, the second day of the intifada,
Jamal al-Dura and his 12-year-old son Muhammad were
returning from a shopping trip to their home in al-Bureij
refugee camp through Netzarim Junction. Although there
were clashes between Palestinian stone-throwers and
the IDF, there was no other route home. As the shooting
intensified, they sheltered behind a barrel.

>snip

Muhammad died and his father was severely injured.
The first ambulance driver at the scene, Bassem al-
Bilbaysi, was killed by Israeli fire at the crossroads as he
tried to rescue the father and son.
The IDF first stated that Muhammad al-Dura was
killed by Palestinian fire. However, on 3 October 2000
the IDF chief of staff said that the IDF had conducted an
investigation "and as far as we understand, the shots
were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers from the
outpost at Netzarim". On 10 October Amnesty
International delegates, including a former senior
policeman, Dr Stephen Males, a specialist in sensitive
public order policing, visited the site. By that time the
IDF had demolished the buildings by which Muhammad
al-Dura and his father had sheltered, so the forensic
evidence was lost.
Photographs taken by journalists before the
destruction showed a pattern of bullet holes in the wall
just around the place where the two were sheltering.
This suggested that Jamal and Muhammad al-Dura were
targeted by the Israeli post opposite where they were
cowering. On 11 October the IDF spokesperson in
Jerusalem showed Amnesty International delegates maps
which purported to show that Muhammad al-Dura had
been killed in crossfire.

pdf document
http://web.amnesty.org/aidoc/ai.nsf/afec99eadc40eff880256e8f0060197c/64f59dc0b44c5fef80256aff0058b1b8/$FILE/ch2.pdf

[eyl]

2. And pretty much every

other investigation - including both the IDF one (the investigation Eiland referred to was a preliminary one, not a full investigation) - an external one, and several (non-Israeli) journalistic investigations, showed al-Dura was most likely not killed by IDF fire.

[pelsar]

3. it was pretty obvious...

just a look at the bullet holes in the wall....shows they came in almost straight in...the israeli outpost was at about 110degrees..the wall had no evidence of bullets scraping it (which is what happens at those angles)..and that was the most obvious

[Tom Joad]

4. Yes, this was throughly investigated by the IDF, the IDF was not

responsible.

They should do that in the US. Every time a a woman dies, instead of having the police go to the trouble & expense of investigating and getting into people's business, just ask the ex-husband what happened. If he says the woman killed herself by stabbing herself in the back eight times, then she killed herself. Case closed. Taxpayers money saved. No need to worry about it. Just move along.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tom Joad]

5. Name a non-Israeli investigation that came to such a conclusion.

citation?

[pelsar]

6. german TV + french

German director Esther Schapira produced "Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young Mohammed al-DuraGerman director Esther Schapira produced "Three Bullets and a Child: Who Killed the Young Mohammed al-Dura

or

Contre-expertise d’une mise en scène" published by Éditions Raphaël, Gérard Huber


like i said...one has to be willfully blind to ignore the angle of the bullet holes...or the fact that the barrel which is in front is still in one piece...but then why ruin a good icon...


and this is why such people believe in the fairy tales:
And on Oct. 9, 2002, the Metula News Agency published an article by a contributing Palestinian journalist, Sami El Soudi, in which he deplores the way Westerners accept uncritically Palestinian propaganda.

I have had the opportunity in previous articles to speak out against the false friends of Palestinians living in liberal democracies. I asked that they stop encouraging the propaganda buffoonery orchestrated and managed by the corrupt leaders who govern us and take us each day deeper into a strategic impasse.

I didn't take part in the specific investigation related to the al-Dura affair … but you should know that our official press reported 300 wounded and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32137

[Englander]

7. Well, obviously.

But, who to believe? The cameraman, ai, & the BBC, the Guardian *, or some particularly hateful
'journalistic investigations', which, I note, you've not provided details of?

*


'What really happened at Netzarim crossroads?
Making of a martyr

On Saturday a 12-year-old Palestinian boy went out to look at used cars and within hours had become a potent symbol of one of the world's most bitter and enduring conflicts. But was he the victim of stray gunfire? Or was he targeted by Israeli soldiers? Suzanne Goldenberg searches for the truth behind the pictures that rocked the world

Tuesday October 3, 2000
The Guardian

>snip

Caught in a burst of firing, the pair sought shelter behind a concrete water butt, about 15 yards to the east of the Palestinian post, diagonally opposite the Israeli position. The father gestured frantically towards the Israelis, as if pleading with them to stop firing. They did not.

"They were cleaning the area. Of course they saw the father," says Talal Abu-Rama, the camera man who watched the horror unfold. "They were aiming at the boy, and that is what surprised me, yes, because they were shooting at him, not only one time, but many times."

The result of that salvo is visible on the cinderblock wall. Aside from the circle of bullet holes - most of them below waist level - the expanse of wall is largely unscarred. This appeared to suggest that the Israeli fire was targeted at the father and son.

The impression is reinforced by other Palestinians at the scene, including a volunteer in the ambulance which tried to get the pair out. "There was still some breath left in him when we reached the ambulance, but when we opened the doors, they started shooting again," says Bassam al-Bilbays, who was riding with the ambulance. The driver was shot dead.

Inevitably, the Israeli army version of Mohammed's death is rather different. Although the army expressed regret about the boy's death, it said the soldiers in their armoured post had been under fire. "I am sorry for this kid. But we are sure that this kid and his father were not there by accident. They were there like the others throwing stones, and throwing Molotovs ," Major-General Yom Tov Samia told Israeli radio.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,376639,00.html

[pelsar]

9. or a palestenain journalist....

Sami El Soudi

I didn't take part in the specific investigation related to the al-Dura affair … but you should know that our official press reported 300 wounded and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed.

Most of the cameramen there were Palestinians. … They willingly took part in the masquerade, filming fictional scenes, believing they were doing it out of patriotism. When a scene was well done the onlookers laughed and applauded. Of course there are hours and hours of footage shot that day and I fear for the image of my people, that they have been recuped by Nahum Shahaf and his team of investigators, and these things I’m talking about will soon be showing on screens in America and Europe.

________

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32137

reminds me of hundreds kiled in the jenin massacre..... and how the willfully ignorent believed and some still to the this day believe it....why ruin a good demonazation of israel with facts

[Scurrilous]

10. Uh pelsar...

...worldnetdaily is a Moonie freakshow. Please don't insult everyone's intelligence by posting their crap here.

[pelsar]

11. didnt know..

never used it before
but the palestenian journalist mentioned, Sami El Soudi, writes about what we've already seen on israeli TV, palestenains corpses falling off their stretchers and then getting back on....

[Englander]

12. WorldNetDaily? Bloody hell.

Good job all I can see is 'Ignored', really.

[Englander]

13. 'Where do you get your news?'

June 23, 2006
Where do you get your news?

Our options for getting news have expanded immensely over the years. When I was a kid, we got our local daily paper, the New York Times on Sunday, and we watched the national news each night. We also got a few newsweeklies. That was probably a lot of information compared to most people; my dad is almost as much of a news junkie as I am.

Now, there are so many more options. Not only has access to mainstream news media expanded enormously thanks to the web, but there are lots of nontraditional news sources (such as blogs). That's great, in that you can find a lot of different viewpoints and ideas out there.

But there are two dangers to this. One is that it's possible to restrict your news intake to people who agree with you. If you're a conservative, you can consume a news diet of Fox News, Michelle Malkin, Wall Street Journal editorials, and right-wing bloggers that leaves you convinced that everyone to the left of you is nuts. If you're a liberal, a steady diet of Daily Kos, BBC, Americablog, and other such sites will confirm your belief that the country has gone insane. In terms of information, you're living in a big self-referential echo chamber.

>snip

And for sheer "quick! put on the tin foil hat!" loopiness, you can't beat WorldNetDaily. It makes me feel like I'm in line at Kroger flipping through a story about a celebrity's alien abduction experience. My favorite recent story there was about whether the new federal Real ID plan is actually the Mark of the Beast.

http://blogs.chron.com/bluebayou/2006/06/news_sources.html

:)

[Englander]

28. Are they Moonies?

I always thought they were pre-millennial dispensationalists/evangelicals/Xtian Zionists, rather
than Moonies. There's certainly a lot of Armageddon/End-Times/Doomsday books in the ads there.

[Scurrilous]

29. Moonie-ish.

MoonieNetDaily?

<snip>

"It might be alarming to some, but it's really not that surprising: WorldNetDaily and News World Communications are forging closer ties.

News World Communications is the owner of the conservative Washington Times, the conservative Insight newsmagazine and the wire service United Press International (whose highest-profile client is NewsMax; former Washington Times and UPI editor Arnaud de Borchgrave sits on NewsMax's board of directors). News World is controlled by the Unification Church, headed by Sun Myung Moon, who used to be widely criticized as a cult leader before he started spreading his millions around conservative causes.

Late last year, WND announced a content-sharing agreement with Insight magazine, which has brought to WND stories like a slanted one on Jan. 26 that describes the so-called "dirty dozen terror caucus" in Congress, in which writer J. Michael Waller equates supporting the causes to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier with providing "active support to terrorist organizations."

<snip>

"The WND store also sells subscriptions to the weekly edition of the Washington Times -- which coincidentally features a column by Farah (WND founder), who contributes another blurb: "If you want the perfect weekly print complement to WorldNetDaily, I strongly recommend the Washington Times Weekly, edited by my friend Robert Morton."

<snip>

"Moon himself claims no journalistic intent. At a celebration of the Times' 20th anniversary last year, Moon said he established the newspaper "in response to heaven's direction" and that "The Washington Times is responsible to let the American people know about God." Moon and his associated other businesses have reportedly poured around $1.7 billion into the Times to keep it afloat since its founding; neither it nor Insight have never made a profit."

http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2003/moonienet.html

[Tom Joad]

15. WorldNetDaily?

You mean one of the official "we love Ann Coulter" sites, where she is seen as an intellectual?
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

"palestenain"???

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Tom Joad]

16. Cant wait to see what is quoted from next.....

I am imagining excerpts from the next discussion:
What really happen was this...
....palestenain terror,.... alien spaceship...Paris Hilton.. Israel completely innocent, ...

Reliable Source: www.nationalenquirer.com/article78784

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[pelsar]

22. but i am waiting....

for an explanation of how bullets entering a wall from a sharp angle.....in fact appear as if they entered straight in......

[Englander]

24. Who Built The Pyramids?

God, UFOs and the Great Pyramid
New documentary looks at who built Egypt's monuments

Posted: June 20, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Who really built the great pyramids of Egypt?

In school, students are taught that the pharoahs used slave labor and existing technology to build tombs for themselves.

But is there more to the story?

>snip

Mysterious legends and records tell of watermarks that were clearly visible on the limestone casing stones of the Great Pyramids suggesting that the Great Pyramid existed before the pharaohs during the great flood of Noah's time.

Although much research remains to be done in these areas, legend, archaeology, mathematics and earth sciences seem to indicate that the Great Pyramid was a monumental device for gathering knowledge and information to be revealed and decoded at a latter time for the spiritual benefit of human beings.

Are you living in that latter time?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50704

[Englander]

26. WMD at WND;

REBUILDING IN THE GULF
Hundreds of WMDs discovered in Iraq
Bombshell report notes 500 chemical weapons including sarin, mustard gas, more to be found

Posted: June 21, 2006
10:39 p.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The U.S. has located some 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003 with more likely to be found, according to two Republican members of Congress trumpeting a newly declassified portion of a government report.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said at an afternoon news conference.

Santorum read from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, which noted: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50746

:nuke::nuke::nuke:

[pelsar]

14. i believe evidence...

simple bullet holes in the wall above.....not a whole lot too it...bullets at sharp angles dont enter like that.....but then, thats just physics....why let that get in the way.

[eyl]

19. And on the other side we have

the IDF, a group of Israeli academics, several French journalists and some German journalists.

to a summary.

The academic investgation referred to above was referred to in the James Fallows article (unfortunately, I can't seem to find a copy online; the Atlantic Monthly site is pay-only); the Wikipedia article only refers to his mentioning the IDF investigation.

BTW, why are journalists who suggest that al-Dura was killed by Palestinian fire "hateful", while suggesting the IDF did it apparently puts you on the side of light and angels?

[Scurrilous]

20. French Journalists?

Or the oft cited (by worldnetdaily and cybercast news) Metula News Agency, a French-language Israeli press agency.

There are a number of 'journalists' and revisionists (many of which, funnily enough, are rabidly right-wing) willing to go to any lengths to defend Israel and its actions. If you want to believe their 'journalism,' good on you.


From the OP:

"The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson, Brigadier General Miri Regev, clarified Thursday that she did not mean to disclaim IDF responsibility for the death of a 12-year-old boy, Mohammed a-Dura, at the start of the second intifada 2000."


The IDF has yet to disclaim responsibility (a rarity indeed). Says it all.

[Englander]

23. Can you spot the difference, eyl?

Which would be an eg of 'hateful' 'journalism'?

1. An article that relies on 1st-hand witnesses, that is based on interviews with those actually
present, & relies on actual footage of the incident, that comes to the conclusion that the forces
of an occupying power were most likely responsible for this incident, as has been found to be the
case in previous/future incidents;

2. An article that relies on analysis of the footage only, & one which comes to the conclusion that
it was all a conspiracy on the part of terrorwists to murder a child, & an ambulance driver, in an
attempt to garner sympathy & to portray the Most-Moral-Army-in-the-World as trigger-happy,
or one that doesn't take the utmost care to avoid killing non-combatants.

If anyone thinks the answer is 1., then a boycott of the Guardian is the next logical step, shurely?

[eyl]

25. Well yeah

if you're taking only the extremes as examples. Personally I think the conclusion that it was faked or deliberate is...far-fetched, shall we say. But the other investigations (the IDF one, the academic on, the German one, and two of the French journalists) all fell between those two extremes - and came to the conclusion the fire did not come from the IDF post. But since you've gone to some lengths to point out the IDF has been responsible for such actions, let me point out that it's not unknowen for the Palestinians to have a somewhat cavalier approach to the truth when it could be used to blame Israel (for example, that case where a Palestinian was supposedly tortured to death by settlers, when it later turned out he died in a car accident*; or remember that funeral where the corpse got up and walked away?)

*This was confirmed later by a Doctors Without Borders investigation

[Englander]

27. Ad hominem, red herrings. n/t

[pelsar]

30. typical....

never seen where the above poster managed to keep an discussion for more than a single reaction....after that comes the irrelevant one liners....

[Behind the Aegis]

17. Propaganda at its worst, rears its ugly head again.

Despite have real issues with the IDF, there are those that feel the need to make up "scenes," such as the al-Dura killing. It is not surprising though, because anything that paints Israel in a bad light is "good media."

[Scorpio2000]

18. Hurray for Palywood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallywood

[Scurrilous]

21. Oh, I'm totally convinced...

...some narrator giving his interpretation of what he sees in the footage.

Ambulances don't arrive to pick up the wounded. No, according to the narrator ambulances arrive on cue.

See it's all staged!! The ambulances arrive on cue. LOL

The funniest part, the narrator is trying to make a case that the guy shot in the leg is acting. Meanwhile bullets are kicking up dust around him as the ambulance arrives on cue to whisk him away. :thumbsup:

That's about as far as I got. Great 'journalism' that there Pallywood.