Many in France, Israel and the West consider Philippe Karsenty as “the Emile Zola of the 21st century” given his role unraveling the al-Dura film hoax and blood libel. Karsenty in France has been at the center of the al-Dura blood libel trials since 2004. These have involved accusations of defamation by France 2 TV news and Charles Enderlin, an Israel- based Jewish producer of the French TV news network. The al Dura affair began at the start of the Second Intifada on September 30, 2000 with a staged video of a Palestinian father Jamal al Dura sheltering his 12 year old son Mohammed allegedly dying from gunfire near the IDF Netzarim outpost in Gaza. It was used as agit-prop by Palestinians and even the late Usama bin Laden accusing Israel and World Jewry as child killers. Several investigators in Israel, France, Germany and the US after looking at the film and forensic evidence declared it a staged hoax. The saga of the al Dura France 2 trials is eerily similar to the official antisemitism of the fin de siècle Dreyfus Affair over a century earlier. Karsenty has won and lost four proceedings given the Kafkaesque vagaries of justice in the French court system. On May 20, an official Israeli Commission published a report confirming what Karsenty and other investigators had said; the al Dura video was a staged hoax, that neither the father Jamal nor the son Mohammed were injured and the IDF was not responsible. The latest appeal decision in June 2013 resulted in a verdict that fined Karsenty 8,000 Euros for defamation of France 2. Based on the January 2013 proceedings everyone thought Karsenty would be exonerated. He immediately filed an appeal to the French Supreme Court. See our interview with NER contributor Nidra Poller published in the July 2013, NER, The Al-Dura Blood Libel Affair:. Against this background we held this interview with Mr. Karsenty while he was in the US and Canada for a series of presentations in August 2013. What follows is Part I of this NER interview with him. Part II will be published on Friday, August 16, 2013.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Aug 2013 01:34:51 +0000
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