Pave: "It's A Cultural Style", V

Le jour 195 de Sarko

Three PM. Everything has begun to degenerate near the Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have fired with live ammunition. The Israelis respond. Ambulance teams, journalists and simple passers-by are caught in the cross-fire. Here Jamal and his son Mohammed are the target of fire coming from the Israeli position. Mohammed is twelve years old. His father tries to protect him. He signals. But there is a new burst of fire. Mohammed is dead and his father is badly wounded.

Charles Enderlin,
France 2 Middle East correspondent improvising news
September 30, 2000 (Fr2/World Politics Review)

When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it.

Joseph Goebbels,
Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda
January 12, 1941 (Die Zeit ohne Beispiel)

We stand by our story.

Charles Enderlin,
Fr2 news fabulist and scenarist for the al-Aqsa Intifada
October 1, 2007 (MSNBC)

See this post for background. See these posts -- here and here and here -- for developments up to the present.

On the 15th of this month, the fabled Fr2 raw Al Durah footage -- that is the video footage in its entirety -- received its premiere public viewing in the Appellate Court of Judge Laurence Trébucq, who is hearing the defendant's appeal in the Fr2 defamation suit against Philippe Karsenty, the director of Media Ratings.

The footage was to establish the following:

• The on-camera death of 12-year old Mohammed Al Durah.

• The on-camera death resulted from Israeli fire.

• Jamal Al Durah, the father, sustained serious wounds from Israeli fire.

• None of the above was staged, thus affirming the integrity of the Fr2 broadcast.

The viewing established none of these. It is questionable whether, in violation of a court order, the video in its entirety was shown. Nidra Poller reports:

AL DURA AFFAIR: FRANCE 2 COOKS THE RAW FOOTAGE

PARIS November 15, 2007 (PJM) - In response to an order issued by the Appellate Court for handover of the unedited raw footage shot by France 2 cameraman Talal Abu Rahma on the 30th of September and 1st of October 2000, the state-owned TV network produced an 18-minute CD, a certificate of conformity, and its Jerusalem Bureau Chief Charles Enderlin. This is the first time monsieur Enderlin has stood before the court since a series of lawsuits for defamation was initiated in September 2006.

... Reading an excerpt from the cameraman’s testimony under oath—”I filmed 27 minutes of the incident that lasted 45 minutes—” the judge asks why there are only 18 minutes on the CD. The seasoned France 2 journalist gives a garbled excuse, a long diversion about how they never conserve raw footage, but this subject was exceptional, so he kept the cassette in a safe. He tells how Talal Abu Rahma was allowed by the IDF to go to the Annual Congress of Press Mediators in April 2001 to receive an award. This was clearly his strategic option, and he used it throughout the screening. Verbose and evasive, he constantly diverted attention away from the image, away from the specific detail under scrutiny, away from events that occurred that day at Netzarim Junction.

So how did the 27 minutes boil down to 18? Enderlin denies that anyone ever said there were 27 minutes… and then says there was some irrelevant material that he chopped off the day after the incident.

The judge presses the point, asking Rosenzweig and Landes* to estimate the duration of the footage they viewed. They both attest to more than 20 minutes… Rosenzweig remembers someone mentioning 27. Karsenty’s lawyer concludes for the record: something is missing.

M. Enderlin simply isn't paying attention. M. Karsenty's lawyer surely must intend sarcasm. The cameraman was deposed saying there were 27 minutes of footage shot.

MANUFACTURED PATHOS, MANIPULATED RAGE
Also Available: Korans In Toilets. Blasphemous Mo (PBUH) Cartoons.
The Torture Of Innocent Terrorists.

We pick up 13 minutes 66 seconds into the video:

Enderlin explains: Talal switched off his camera and wraps it up. He had done his day’s work. When he turns it on again, the real shooting has begun. Enderlin’s voice is dramatic. He comments, as the camera searches. Real gunfire, Talal is trying to see where it is coming from, is it the Israeli position? No, is it the Palestinian… From the “twin towers?” The fortress?

Karsenty reminds him he said you can’t see the bullets coming out. Enderlin says you can see the tip of the barrel of the gun at the window.

Suddenly everything is confused. The timeline skips from 14’20 to 17’00. We see the beginning of the al Dura news report as it was broadcast. The avocat général fiddles with the controls, the image winds back, forward. We’re back at the interview. The commentary is confused. Is Charles Enderlin saying the fire was coming from the Palestinian positions?

Finally—it’s not clear how—we get to the al Dura footage. And all we see is what you got in the original September 30, 2000 broadcast. It’s spliced. But we recognize the details. Karsenty interrupts every few seconds to point out the anomalies. No blood. The boy is holding a red kerchief to make it look like blood. The soldiers were supposed to be firing at them for 45 minutes, the wall is intact, there are a few holes. Round holes, shot head on.

Charles Enderlin and Talal Abu Rahma have consistently claimed that the Israeli position was directly opposite the targeted man and boy. It is not true.

Then there is this curious compression of profuse telephony into a scant minute:

Back in the autumn of 2000 when the al Dura news report first hit the screens, Talal Abu Rahma and Charles Enderlin often told how they experienced, by exchange of cell phone calls, that terrible ordeal as it was happening. Talal phoned to say the man and the boy were pinned down by gunfire. Enderlin said be careful. Talal described how the man tried to protect the boy, called someone on his cell phone, tried to show the Israeli soldiers he was a helpless civilian, with a child. Abu Rahma filmed, phoned, filmed. He told Enderlin to look after his family if anything happened to him. He was ducking bullets, shielded by a panel truck, a few kids were gathered around him, seeking refuge. Bullets were flying. How many phone calls? Maybe a dozen, as they told it then. All the way up to the fatal outcome.

On November 14th, Charles Enderlin, standing before the judges, as the brief one-minute of raw footage focused on Mohamed al Dura and his father drew to an end, began that litany: and Talal was calling me as it was happening…

He would have gone on if someone hadn’t interrupted him. ... He might have gone on, and described the dramatic phone calls back and forth, without realizing that everyone in the courtroom saw that the raw footage focused on the al Dura incident lasted only one minute. Just one minute. How many times did the cameraman call the journalist as he filmed that dramatic one-minute incident?

And the totality of film recorded by the France 2 cameraman on that fateful day, over a period of at least 5 hours, was eighteen minutes?

What is certain at this point is that Fr2 misreported its story. What is probable is Talal Abu Rahma staged the shooting or knew it was staged and Charles Enderlin deliberately cooked the story of the received footage.

------------------------------------
* Mr. Landes here says "about 20 minutes of tape". Denis Jeambar, who viewed the extent video in October 2004, here recalls it as 27 or 28 minutes ("27 ou 28 minutes qui avaient été tournées par le cameraman").

PFFT (What is this?): Nine-minute mystery 5 | Fr2 whopper 4½ | Rayonnement français 1½

Posted by Damian at November 26, 2007 06:30 PM