Israel Matzav: Report: IDF had full al-Dura video the entire time, left defenders to fight France 2 on their own

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Report: IDF had full al-Dura video the entire time, left defenders to fight France 2 on their own

Who decided to let the IDF shoot the country in the foot? This is simply beyond belief.

It turns out that while Phillippe Karsenty, Dr. Yehuda David and others were defending the IDF against charges that it shot Mohamed al-Dura, the IDF had the full video that proved the death was staged and didn't bother to tell anyone.

Now [Israel Police Weapons Lab director Elliot Springer] has revealed that just weeks after the alleged shooting, senior IDF officials met and watched the entire video, rather than the edited version presented by France’s Channel 2 that sparked the accusations against Israel.

"Despite the media reports based on edited and doctored video footage, we watched the original, and all sounds of IDF fire was muffled - far away in the background. When the barrage fired at al-Dura was fired, the audio was suddenly close by - in other words Arab gumen right beside the camera near al-Dura fired them, not the IDF,” he reported.

Springer’s testimony strengthens those of other witnesses and experts who have declared the IDF innocent of shooting Al-Dura. However, it has also raised a disturbing new question: if the IDF had the original, full footage of the shooting, why did it not share it with Dr. Yehuda David, French media analyst Philippe Karsenty, or others who attempted to advocate on Israel’s behalf?

Both David and Karsenty fought in court to force France’s Channel 2 to reveal the full footage. Both needed it to help their own cases: Karsenty was sued for accusing French media of deliberately staging the video, while David was sued by Al-Dura’s father, Jamal, for revealing that scars Jamal had claimed were the result of bullet wounds sustained in the shooting were in fact from an incident years earlier in which Jamal had been attacked by an Arab gang.

Both men fought lengthy legal battles over their attempts to defend the IDF from libel – and yet the IDF apparently did not offer them help when it could, by making the full video available to them.

It is also not clear why the IDF did not make the whole video public in order to boost the growing body of evidence showing the IDF did not cause Al-Dura’s death.

Who were Israel's Defense Ministers since 2000? I'm so glad you asked:

12	Ehud Barak	One Israel	28	6 July 1999	7 March 2001	Serving Prime Minister
13	Binyamin Ben-Eliezer	Labor Party	29	7 March 2001	2 November 2002
14	Shaul Mofaz	Likud	29, 30	4 November 2002	4 May 2006	Not an MK at start of term in office
15	Amir Peretz	Labor Party	31	4 May 2006	18 June 2007
–	Ehud Barak	Labor Party, Independence	31, 32	18 June 2007	18 March 2013	Not an MK at start of term in office
16	Moshe Ya'alon	Likud	33	18 March 2013

Yes, you guessed it. With the exception of Yaalon, who took over three months ago, every single one of them belongs to the Left (don't let the Likud next to Mofaz's name fool you - he's belong to Kadima since late 2005). In fact, Ehud Barak's two terms add up to nearly 8 of the 13 years in question. Do you think he knew about this? I would bet on it. So why didn't he tell anyone?

I leave speculation about that question to the reader rather than making my blood boil.

Labels: Amir Peretz, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Ehud Barak, France 2, Mohamed al-Dura, Moshe Yaalon, Pallywood, Phillippe Karsenty, Shaul Mofaz