TRIUMPH for the truth vs. the BBC's AL-DURA Libel

 THE TRUTH REMAINED UNTOLD

Usually we have to watch with frustration that, although its falsity should be clear by now, the Al-Dura libel against Israel still prevails, both in visual and in verbal forms. Of course in the Muslim and in the Third world, but even in western and liberal media.

Since the Paris trial and France 2's defeat there on May 21 2008, the whole world should have heard about the disparagement of the fraudulous France-2 Al-Dura blood libel there.  But in fact it didn't happen. Take-A-Pen's original reports , also from the courtroom, about the falsity of the France2 video and about the decision of the Paris Court of Appeals that Philippe Karsenty is innocent of libel, and that he or anyone can righteously call the famous France2 clip about Al-Dura a "media fraud" or a "staged fake" - are still among the relatively few media accounts. In certain languages TakeAPen was the first, somewher still the only one to tell the truth.

But now there is a fresh important success story, which can serve as a model to further similar successes for the truth.

The BBC APOLOGIZES for their AL-DURA INACCURACY

A media-watch volunteer in London, Stephen Franklin**, demonstrated great perseverance to take on the BBC, the complaints procedure of which is notoriously difficult, and managed to secure an apology for a recent BBC statement that Israeli soldiers killed Muhammad al-Dura.

Franklin sent in a complaint regarding the BBC2 programme "Generation Jihad" broadcast on 8 February 2010.  In the programme, the narrator stated: "In September 2000, 12 year old Muhammad al-Dura was shot dead by Israeli soldiers."

This original assertion of Charles Enderlin of France2, who was not even present at the event, based on a single Palestinian eye-witness, was long doubted and after the Paris trial's decision on May 21 2008 can almost certainly be considered proven a staged fake and definitely unfounded. Yet, the dead Muhammad Al-Dura remained an iconic reason of hatred against Israel for hundreds of millions people in Muslim and third world countries and in the West, and even by official global organs like the UN.

The complaint was accepted only on appeal, by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit where Fraser Steel, Head of Editorial Complaints, replied this:

"...even in the absence of an "official" Israeli Government position on the shooting of Al-Durrah, the fact remains that many people believe that the bullets which killed him could not have come from Israeli positions. The Director of the Israeli Government Press Office believes that "there was no basis for the accusations levelled against Israel". He is quite clearly not alone in this view, as evidenced by the recent trial of Philippe Karsenty to which your complaint refers, who had expressed the view that footage of the incident had been faked. An internet search shows a significant number of people similarly believe that the IDF could not have killed Al-Durrah (and some who believe he was not killed at all).

In the light of these points, I think that, in stating as fact that Muhammed Al-Durrah was killed by the Israeli Army, the programme went beyond what could be said with certainty. ...

I hope you will accept my apologies, on behalf of the BBC, for the breach of standards in relation to accuracy which we have identified."

AN IMPORTANT TRIUMPH FOR THE TRUTH

To those who follow the Al-Dura case's difficult history it is clear that BBC's apology can be a trend-setter, if consistently used as a precedent.  This is a dramatic victory in the Al-Dura case in praticular, and in the continuing global battle over the media's fair Israel coverage in general.

Most of the global mainstream media still fail to acknowledge that their original Al-Dura story blaming Israel is undefendable, and do not report the new evidence. But after the BBC's apology, in every single case when any media outlet promotes the al-Dura libel, quotes the Palestinian/France2 version without acknowledging that the incident was probably a staged fake, or at least totally unfounded, you can and should demand a correction and an apology, citing this BBC precedence.

*Endre(Andre) MOZES, Take-A-Pen http://www.takeapen.org/

**Steven Franklin was a subscriber of the international HonestReporting media-watch organization. Take-A-Pen and HonestReporting were among the first ones to jointly report after the first public screening of the failing 18 minutes raw footage of France2's Al-Dura video, in the Paris Appeal Court on Nov. 7 2007, where Endre Mozes was present. TAP and HR reported jointly about it among others in two joint YouTube videos.