In the latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows puts another nail in the coffin of the Mohammed Al-Dura myth.*
The image of a boy shot dead in his helpless father's arms during an Israeli confrontation with Palestinians has become the Pietà of the Arab world. Now a number of Israeli researchers are presenting persuasive evidence that the fatal shots could not have come from the Israeli soldiers known to have been involved in the confrontation. The evidence will not change Arab minds—but the episode offers an object lesson in the incendiary power of an icon
Not that this will prevent that myth, in or out of its coffin, from being continually paraded angrily through Arab streets for an indefinite time to come, but the rest of the world is starting to wake up to the outrageous hoax that was perpretrated here, and they may be starting to get just a bit angry, too. Angry that their goodwill and natural human empathy have been played like a cheap violin.
. . . [A]lmost since the day of the episode evidence has been emerging in Israel, under controversial and intriguing circumstances, to indicate that the official version of the Mohammed al-Dura story is not true. It now appears that the boy cannot have died in the way reported by most of the world's media and fervently believed throughout the Islamic world. Whatever happened to him, he was not shot by the Israeli soldiers who were known to be involved in the day's fighting—or so I am convinced, after spending a week in Israel talking with those examining the case. The exculpatory evidence comes not from government or military officials in Israel, who have an obvious interest in claiming that their soldiers weren't responsible, but from other sources. In fact, the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, seem to prefer to soft-pedal the findings rather than bring any more attention to this gruesome episode. The research has been done by a variety of academics, ex-soldiers, and Web-loggers who have become obsessed with the case, and the evidence can be cross-checked.
This is by far the most comprehensive, intensively researched piece of work on the death of Mohammed Al-Dura I've seen to date. Read the whole thing.
*(Credit to IMRA for the heads-up on this article.)
