MUHAMED AL DURAH, A PALLYWOOD FAKE?

Who can forget the image of Muhamed al Durah , “gunned down in a hail of Israeli bullets” at the very beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada? The impact of this dramatic footage on global culture is close to incalculable. It is one of “ the 25 most powerful images of the past 50 years ,” one of the shaping images of this young 21st century.

Partisans of the Palestinian cause claim it reveals Israeli malevolence and wanton violence , murdering a defenseless child in cold blood, as telling today as when it happened   Osama bin Laden's recruiting tape focused on this footage, claiming that “in killing this boy the Israelis killed every child in the world.”  Partisans of Israel claim the footage was staged and al Durah was either unharmed, or killed by Palestinians. To them the footage reveals the ruthless propaganda and paranoid nature of PA media culture… the first blood libel of the 21st century.

Faced with such awful alternatives, many retreat to neutrality: Who knows who did it? It illustrates the tragic devaluing of life in this conflict. But no case better illustrates the inadequacy of such even-handedness.  There are genuine consequences to misjudging a case that provided major inspiration to the suicide terrorism that now plagues the entire planet and, if this is a Pallywood fake, it constitutes one of the greatest debacles in modern media history: a lie that has killed many and a shameful MSM cover-up.

Not surprisingly, the public has yet to see any of the footage in order to judge. Today marks the fifth year since the explosive storyline of Israeli child-murder first spread around the globe.  Second Draft, which has already posted raw footage from that day, announces that it will shortly offer citizens of cyberspace a look at the available evidence specifically about Al Durah, and, as with Pallywood, analyses of the media's “first draft” of this story. 

Come to the site on October 12, see the evidence, make up your own mind.