Newest testimony in Al-Dura case
raises the question: where was the IDF while others fought to clear Israel’s
name?
By Maayana Miskin
The al-Dura Incident
Last week retired Israel Police
Weapons Lab director Elliot Springer gave new
testimony regarding
the infamous Al-Dura video, which the Arab world has held up as evidence
that Israeli soldiers shot and killed an Arab child.
During his years with the Israel
Police, Springer was not authorized to speak to the media about the affair,
and could only watch in silence as Western media blamed Israel for the
death, while Arab terrorist groups used it as an excuse for further attacks
on Israel.
Now he has revealed that just weeks
after the alleged shooting, senior IDF officials met and watched the entire
video, rather than the edited version presented by France’s Channel 2
that sparked the accusations against Israel.
"Despite the media reports
based on edited and doctored video footage, we watched the original, and
all sounds of IDF fire was muffled - far away in the background. When the
barrage fired at al-Dura was fired, the audio was suddenly close by - in
other words Arab gumen right beside the camera near al-Dura fired them,
not the IDF,” he reported.
Springer’s testimony strengthens
those of other witnesses and experts who have declared the IDF innocent
of shooting Al-Dura. However, it has also raised a disturbing new question:
if the IDF had the original, full footage of the shooting, why did it not
share it with Dr.
Yehuda David, French
media analyst Philippe
Karsenty, or others
who attempted to advocate on Israel’s behalf?
Both David and Karsenty fought in
court to force France’s Channel 2 to reveal the full footage. Both needed
it to help their own cases: Karsenty was sued for accusing French media
of deliberately staging the video, while David was sued by Al-Dura’s father,
Jamal, for revealing that scars Jamal had claimed were the result of bullet
wounds sustained in the shooting were in fact from an incident
years earlier in
which Jamal had been attacked by an Arab gang.
Both men fought lengthy legal battles
over their attempts to defend the IDF from libel – and yet the IDF apparently
did not offer them help when it could, by making the full video available
to them.
It is also not clear why the IDF
did not make the whole video public in order to boost the growing body
of evidence showing the IDF did not cause Al-Dura’s death.
IDF spokespeople did not respond
to an Arutz Sheva request for comment
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169750#.Ud3fMlnn-1s
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