Who is Muhamed al Durah?

Richard Landes, Professor of history at Boston University, has made uncovering historical fraud something of a specialty.  Trained as a medievalist he wrote his first book on a series of forgeries that had fooled historians for centuries.  The professor has partnered with Pedro Zúquete, who holds his BA in History from University of Coimbra in Portugal and his PhD in Political Science from Bath University UK.  Together they have unveiled more recent historical fraud -- the story of Muhamed al Durah.

Muhamed al Durah grew up in El Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. On September 30, 2000, he was in Netzarim Junction where Palestinian youth had gathered to throw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli police station on the northeast corner of the intersection. He and his father took shelter behind a concrete cylinder on the southwest corner... Allegedly shot dead in a hail of bullets, captured on tape by a Palestinian photographer working for France2 [http://www.france2.fr/] television, Muhamed was buried that day as his picture went out around the world. He became the poster boy for the intifada, inspiring much of the violence, including the first rounds of suicide bombing (2001).

The story presented for public consumption, that Israeli soldiers purposely shot the boy dead, continues to serve as justification for all manner of violence against Jews in Israel and around the world.  At SecondDraft.org Professor Landes and Mr. Zúquete present their evidence of the much likelier scenario -- it was all staged for the cameras.

At funeral, the mourners already have posters of the boy: In order for them to have this, they would have had to go to his home in El-Bureij, get a picture, make the poster and copy it for distribution all in approximately one to two hours. In the meantime, his mother claims that she didn't find out about his death until the later evening news.

SecondDraft.org serves as a counterweight to the mainstream press claim that journalism is the "first draft of history".  All too often we find that first draft is rife with errors, so many of which are not accidental.

Comments

[Tom]

Interesting news. It does seem possible that the Palestinians staged the incident. I like your site.

[Tom Bowler]

Thanks. Among the five scenarios presented by Professor Landes is one in which the reporting was accurately done. That's a possibility, too, though it seems unlikely.

[Tom]

Do you know in his theory then if they claim the Palestinians shot the boy or did they intentionally put him in the Israelis targets?

[Tom Bowler]

I don't know. I believe the professor's theory is scenario five, that it was staged, but I don't know that for fact. He points to lack of blood on the ground at the scene and that funeral posters were all ready to go in a matter of a couple of hours, but I gathered this from his web site. I have no first hand knowledge.