UPDATED: More than 12 years after France 2 aired a report claiming that Israeli soldiers shot dead 12-year-old Mohammed Al Dura, an Israeli government review committee has concluded that there was no evidence for those claims and that the report was used as propaganda that provoked violence and hatred against Israel and contributed to the delegitimization of the Jewish state. CAMERA sorts out the claims and counter-claims.
The efforts of Palestinian propagandists to exploit Pope Francis' recent visit to the Holy Land revealed serious problems in Palestinian civil society.
Blaming the IDF for nearly 1,000 child deaths, a Ha'aretz editorial dismisses the Israeli government report on Al Dura as "dubious," "barely serious." But Ha'aretz's own accusations, based on distortions of B'Tselem figures, are just that.
CAMERA's Israel staff elicited a correction from the English edition of Ha'aretz on a news article which stated as fact that Mohammed Al-Dura was killed by Israeli army fire.
For years, Charles Enderlin of French public television network France 2 has been battling accusations that his September 30, 2000 newscast of a Palestinian boy allegedly shot to death by Israelis was staged. The Israeli government has now joined the chorus of voices that insist the broadcast was staged for propaganda purposes.