September 30, 2000, Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip. State-owned France 2 TV channel reports the shooting of a Palestinian youth, Mohamed Al Dura and the wounding of his father Jamal, “targets of gunfire from the Israeli position.” Jerusalem bureau chief Charles Enderlin intones, “the child is dead, his father critically wounded.” The accusation enflames the news stream, ignites a wave of Jew hatred unlike anything known since the Shoah. Blood libel. Israelis are branded as child-killers. A war of atrocities, the “Al Aqsa Intifada,” is unleashed against Israeli civilians, Jews by the thousands are attacked in France and throughout Europe. Is the “death of Mohamed al Dura” a news broadcast? Or is it a staged scene, the creation of a myth, a lethal narrative launched in a war of conquest disguised as the pathetic cries of helpless victims. How did a crudely fabricated video leap into Western media from a Palestinian source and circulate without encountering a critical eye? Astute observers did in fact notice incongruities in the fleeting images of the alleged incident. They have investigated, analyzed, reported on their findings. But it takes something more than rational exposés to counter an explosive myth.
