Israel Matzav

Let the dead bury their dead

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has a great summary of the Gaza beach 'work accident' (yes, that's apparently what it was - the deaths were apparently caused by a 'Palestinian' mine hidden on the beach) and its aftermath.

On close examination, it looks like the Gaza Beach tragedy was a Hamas-produced exploitation video passed off as news. Western media with a claim to integrity should explore their readiness to pick up and relay these lurid stories. The cynically exploited image of Huda running across the sand, discovering the dead bodies, throwing herself around hysterically, crying, and mouthing inappropriate accusations should be reviewed, cleansed of the twisted emotional impact it was designed to provoke, and studied as an example of blood libel.

Individuals should ask themselves how they were so blinded by images of a child’s grief that they were unable to think rationally about the story she was illustrating.

Huda has become an icon in the Arab-Muslim world, bringing to mind Mohamed al-Dura seminal icon of the jihad-intifada launched against Israel in September 2000. There, too, a crude enactment of a child’s suffering served as the emotional flash that obliterates rational thinking. The failure to come to grips with the al-Dura blood libel, despite relentless efforts by analysts and investigators, has facilitated acceptance of the latest version--the massacre on Gaza Beach.

Ample display of bleeding bodies and bloody garments corroborate reports that Palestinians were in fact hit by an explosion on a Gaza Beach on June 9th. Nothing indicates that they were, as France 2 Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin said of Jamal and Mohamed al-Dura, “targets of fire coming from the Israeli positions.” The Mohamed al-Dura “news report” is an uneventful 55-second video that purports to capture the murder of a Palestinian child, deliberately killed by Israeli soldiers on 30 September 2000. The film shows nothing of the kind. But the myth endures.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:11 AM