Shooting Errors of a Palestinian Boy

Although it happened almost a year and a half ago, who can forget twelve-year-old Muhammad al-Dura dying in his father's arms at Netzarim Crossing in the Gaza Strip, a victim of routine and intentional Israeli brutality. At least that's how French television depicted it in a video clip replayed countless times the world over. The image quickly attained iconic status, and Muhammad became the poster child for the second Palestinian intifada. (In its own narration of the clip, the Palestinian Authority spoke of the "beauty of the martyr," whose blood flows "like a waterfall.") But now a March 17 documentary aired by Germany's ARD television suggests something extraordinary: that Muhammad was killed not by Israeli soldiers, but by Palestinian gunmen, perhaps deliberately to create precisely such a photogenic martyr. The French footage, it turns out, was heavily edited--from six minutes to 50 seconds--and the French won't let anyone see the tape they didn't air. What's more, the Palestinian Authority didn't allow an autopsy on the boy and never released the bullet that killed him for outside scrutiny. ARD has done its own forensic investigation, however, and concluded that the shot that entered Muhammad's crouching body could not have come from the location where Israeli soldiers were positioned. ARD's report has been covered extensively in the German press (Die Welt headlined its article, "RICOCHETING TRUTH"). As of this writing, however, no major American newspaper or TV network--including the many that ran the original footage of Muhammad's death--has mentioned it.