| When the Camp David negotiations broke down in 2000, Arafat bolted and ran directly to Paris, where he had a night time meeting with Chirac.
Nothing has ever been published on what these two talked about.
A few weeks later, the war began in earnest, and a state-owned TV channel, France 2, soon had footage of the killing of a 12 years old Palestinian child by Israeli machine-gunners near Netzarim in the Gaza strip. Muhammad el-Dura became a symbol of Palestinian victimhood.
An independant French-language press agency, Metula News Agency (Ména), has been inquiring extensively into this propaganda fabrication since then.
They've had their final report translated to English, duly copyrighted but I'll copy-paste it anyway:
Metula News
Agency ©
English
La Mena is a press agency offering strategic analyses, proximity reports,
and media watch articles Copyright © 2003 Metula News Agency ? News at the
top of the page ? Practical Information at the end of the article. Share
your comments and reactions with everyone on the Mena forum
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The Al-Dura case : a dramatic conclusion (info # 010311/4EV) [scoop]
By Stéphane Juffa © Metula News Agency
Translated by Llewellyn Brown
A Summary of the facts
After three years of research, more than 150 inquiries, interviews and
analyses devoted to the France 2 report of 30 September 2000 at the
Netzarim Junction, in the Gaza strip, the Ména has published a long series
of articles revealing the following elements:
The news report produced by Talal Abu-Rahma and Charles Enderlin,
asserting that a Palestinian child had been assassinated by Israeli
soldiers, and distributed free of charge by a French public television
channel around the world is a gross staging, aimed at demonizing Israel and
the Israeli army. The soldiers accused by the commentary of the permanent
correspondent of FR2 at Jerusalem did not fire a single projectile in the
direction of the adult Jamal Al-Dura and the child at his side, as they
were completely unaware of their presence on the scene.
The supposed authenticity of the report, defended until now by the
channel's management, was based on the sole testimony of its reporter Talal
Abu-Rahma and principally on the declaration written, filed and ratified by
the latter, 3 October 2000, in the presence of the lawyer of the
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Raji Sourani at Gaza. In this
declaration, published in its entirety, with sketches of the events to
corroborate it, on the Center's web site, Abu-Rahma notably declares :
I, the undersigned, Talal Hassan Abu Rahma, resident of the Gaza
Strip and who bears ID no. 959852849, give my statement under oath and
after having been given legal warning and choice by Lawyer Raji Sourani, on
the killing of Mohammed Jamal Al-Durreh and the injuring of his father
Jamal Al-Durreh both shot at by the Israeli Occupying Forces.[?]
Then, I focused my camera on the child Mohammed Jamal Al-Durreh who
was shot in his right leg. His father tried to calm, protect and cover his
son with his hands and body. Sometimes, the father Jamal was raising his
hands asking for help. Other details of the incident are as they were
apparently shown at the film. I spent approximately 27 minutes
photographing the incident which took place for 45 minutes. [?]
The Metula News Agency, confirming the conclusions of the inquiry appointed
by the commander of the southern front of the Israeli army, led by the
physicist Nahum Shahaf, has constantly asserted that Abu-Rahma's
declaration was a false testimony and that the 27 minutes of film of the
incident ? that is to say the filmed documents showing the Israeli soldiers
firing in the direction of Jamal Al-Dura and leading to the death of the
"child" ? did not exist.
Until Friday 22 October, the numerous official appeals made by our agency
to FR2 to view the 27 minutes of Abu-Rahma's rushes, as well as our
reiterated proposals to compare our respective materials met with a
refusal. Furthermore, our agency, supported by the conclusions of our
inquiry, has constantly assert that Charles Enderlin's numerous
declarations, evoking the existence of this footage of pictures showing the
child's death, that the permanent correspondent of FR2 says he edited in
order to spare the television spectators, are a fabrication, serving to
confer an appearance of authenticity to a fictional event that it
contributes to transform into an event reputed to be real.
We find a sample of this sort of declaration by Enderlin in the issue 2650,
page 10, of the publication Télérama, 25 October :
"I edited the death of the child. It was too unbearable. The story
was |