Israel should file criminal charges against France 2 following a government report Sunday that the television channel broadcast a film in 200 that falsely portrayed the alleged killing of 12-year-old Mohammed Al-Dura by Israeli soldiers.

Charles Enderlin was bureau chief of France 2 when the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, broke out. He “should never be allowed to practice journalism in Israel again,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center.

“In 2007 we argued at the High Court in Jerusalem that France 2′s credentials be canceled, but the press office cited they had a lack of authority to do so,” she added. “Now that the government has determined we were right, it’s time France 2′s bureau chief be prosecuted. Enderlin’s report became a symbol of the second Intifada and a modern-day blood libel directly resulting in hundreds of Jewish and Arab deaths, only for the purpose of raising France 2′s ratings.

“The French network ignited a still-burning torch of hatred against Israel, with images of al-Dura still being presented in anti-Israel protests in Iran, the Arab world and in Western Europe. Those who are responsible must bear the consequences of their actions in order to avoid the repetition of incidents like this and, moreover, to stop this blood libel once and for all.”

An official Israeli government report declared Sunday that Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old boy whose picture convinced the entire world that the IDF had killed him, not only did not die but also may never have been shot.

Now, 13 years after the supposed killing that incited the senseless murders of Israelis as well as Jews throughout the world, the Israel government report categorically concluded that the France 2 report was much more of a hoax than thought several years ago.

For a close look at the footage, click here.

“Contrary to the claim that the boy was dead, the committee’s review of the raw footage indicates that at the end of the video – the part that was not broadcast – the boy appears to be alive,” according to the report by the Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy.

“The probe has found that there is no evidence to support the claims that the father, Jamal, or the boy Mohammed, were shot. Furthermore, the video does not show Jamal being seriously wounded. On the other hand, many signs indicate that the two were never hit by the bullets.”

The panel was comprised of officials from the Defense and Foreign ministries, experts from outside the government and the police, and it was headed by Yossi Kuperwasser, former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

The revelation puts another nail in the coffin of the “Al Dura news report” that was challenged by a French Jew, Philippe Karsenty, who charged that France 2 journalist Charles Enderlin created a media lie by broadcasting edited footage that alleged that the IDF killed the boy.

An emotionally wrenching photo that was seen around the world shows Mohammed supposedly crying out as he and his father took cover during a gun battle between the IDF and Palestinian Authority terrorists at the beginning of what has been termed the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, in 2000.

The alleged shooting of Mohammed Al Dura was filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian Authority photographer who free-lanced for France 2. The film lasts for 55 seconds and shows the boy screaming before the sound of gunfire, followed by a scene of the boy apparently dead over his father’s legs.

Enderlin told viewers the boy was killed and had been the “target of fire from the Israeli positions.” The gunfight occurred on the second day of the Oslo War and spread venom throughout the Arab world, inciting terrorist against Israel.

To make matters worse, the IDF apologized within 24 hours even though the military had not verified the alleged shooting.

The timing of Sunday’s government report is astounding because a French court is to rule later this week on a libel suit filed by Enderlin against Karsenty, who previously was backed by a lower French court, which stated that Karsenty presented a “coherent mass of evidence” and that the Palestinian Authority cameraman for France 2 was not “perfectly credible.”

Karsenty’s investigation revealed that France 2 had edited the film and it was not clear whether the boy died from Israeli or Palestinian Authority fire. At the same time, media watchdogs began documenting “Pallywood” productions that the Palestinian Authority staged for journalists, who gobbled up faked scenes of supposedly wounded Arab victims of IDF gunfire who magically were later seen walking around freely after having been shoved into ambulances.

From a further perspective, the Israeli report punctures another Big Lie that has haunted Israel ever since the Six-Day War in 1967 way.

A small sample of other lies includes:

–   Israel  occupied Judea and Samaria, most of which were in fact taken over by Jordan without any international authorization;

–   Children of Arabs who were chased out of Israel or who fled Israel are ”refugees,” a second generation status that the United Nations does not grant to anyone in the world except Arabs who claim Israel as their home;

–  Israel aggressively attacked Lebanese “guerillas” who pulverized northern residents before the “Peace for the Galilee campaign, now known as the First Lebanese War, in which Israel established a security zone in southern Lebanon to defend the north;

–  Israel committee war crimes for years, especially during the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign in the winter of 2008-2009. The United Nations Goldstone report claimed Israel for dozens of war crimes but the report’s author, Judge Richard Goldstone, later admitted that had he known then what he knows now, he would have reached different conclusions;

–Israel built an “Apartheid’ Wall that creates a separation between Jews and Arabs. In fact, most of the “wall” that runs for more than 200 miles is a fence, which has helped reduce the number of suicide terrorist attacks against to near zero. The fence also does not “keep out” Arabs because Israel operates checkpoints at numerous gates to make sure that Arabs who are not terrorists can travel freely into the rest of Israel; and

–  Israel “degrades” Palestinian Authority Arabs at checkpoints, even though it uses the same search methods that the United States and other Western countries use at airports and borders.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said after the new report was released that the France 2 film in 2000 “was an example of the deceitful delegitimization that we are constantly subject to. There is only one way to battle lies – by telling the truth.”

The supposed killing of the boy has been cited as the catalyst for the grizzly and barbaric lynching IDF reservists the following month in Ramallah, where they had arrived by mistake. The “Al Dura incident” also was said to have incited the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl as well as Osama bin Laden.

The question remains whether Mohammed al Dura was ever wounded, or if he even was a real person.

There is a less of a question concerning the credibility of international coverage of Israel.

Day by day, reports covering the “peace process” and the “Palestinian struggle” show fatigue in continuing to report Arab claims that have become so ludicrous that they simply are ignored.

Without media support, and without media incitement, the Palestinian Authority is increasingly being left with an audience of one hand clapping.

One other question arises: Can France 2 can be accused of inciting war crimes against Israel?

Columnist David Suissa, the founder of OLAM magazine, has challenged theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking to visit a three-year old Gaza paraplegic who is being cared for by Israel.

Hawking shocked the entire Israel political spectrum, from left to right, by his boycotting President Shimon Peres annual “Presidential Conference’ because of the “occupation.”

Hawking who is severely handicapped by a deteriorating disease and is confined to a wheelchair, is able to communicate through a device that is run by a computer chip designed and developed in Israel.

“Instead of getting upset at Hawking, I would rather we invite him to visit the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, part of the Tel HaShomer complex in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan, Suissa wrote in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.

There, he would meet a three-year-old Arab toddler with no arms and no legs, named Mohammed al-Farra.

“Mohammed was born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government refused to pay for his care.

“As soon as he was born, he was rushed to Israel for emergency treatment. As reported in Huffpost, his genetic disorder left him with a weakened immune system and crippled his bowels, and an infection destroyed his hands and feet, requiring them to be amputated.

“Since then, he has spent his days and nights in an Israeli hospital undergoing treatment and learning how to use prosthetic limbs. His grandfather lives with him. Mohammed has been warmly embraced and cared for by his Israeli doctors, who have arranged for him and his grandfather to live in the sunny pediatric ward.”

Suissa asked, “I wonder what kind of boycott Hawking would have in mind after meeting little Mohammed, and after learning about the thousands of other Arab children from the West Bank and Gaza who are routinely cared for in Israeli hospitals?

“Well, I can think of at least one: It would be a boycott of every country in the world that neglects to care for disabled children like Steven Hawking and Mohammed al-Farra.”

To the Honorable Leaders of the Arab States,

We in Israel received with great pleasure your agreement to normalize relations with Israel  on condition that we agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state and exchanges of territories between that state and Israel. The Palestinian state that you propose to establish in Judea and Samaria would be the second Palestinian state, since the first Palestinian state was established six years ago in the Gaza Strip, and you clearly recognize it as such in practice. How else can the state visits of the Emir of Qatar and the secretary of the Arab League in Gaza  be understood?  Now you propose the establishment of a second Palestinian state? Perhaps a third!! Because Jordan is also a state with a Palestinian majority. And all of these states were established – as you know – on land that the League of Nations had designated for a Jewish state at the San Remo Conference, in April  of 1920. So why should we agree to exchange territories with any state or states that have been established or will be established on our land?

And if indeed a second Palestinian state will arise in Judea and Samaria (that which you call “the West Bank”) can you promise us that this state will not at some time in the future become another Hamas state? Do you not recall that Hamas won a clear majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006? Did you not see how Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip with bombs, fire and kalashnikovs in June of 2007? Will you send a military force to get rid of Hamas after this terror organization also takes over – by means of elections or revolution – the new Palestinian state as well? Or perhaps you will leave us bleeding as a result of the problem that you have created?

We in Israel are very touched by the fact that you, as an Arab collective, not as individual states that have made a peace agreement with us, finally agree to accept us as an existing state in the Middle East. Indeed, it has taken you 65 years to understand that we are here, on the land of our fathers, that we have come back to stay in our land forever and ever until eternity. But why do you call to displant Jerusalem,  the historical capital of the Jewish people, from the Jewish state? Was Jerusalem ever a capital of something connected to the Arab world or Islam? Throughout all of history, did an Emir, Sultan Caliph or Arab or Islamic King rule in it even for one day? Do you not remember that since the Islamic conquest in 637, the capital of “Jund Filastin” (the region of Palestine) was called Ramle? Then why has Jerusalem suddenly emerged as a candidate for capital of the second Palestinian state? Just because it is our capital?

Just to remind you: Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were under Jordanian occupation for 7000 days, from May of 1948 until June of 1967. You had 7000 golden opportunities to establish a Palestinian state on this territory with Jerusalem as its capital. Why didn’t you do it? Why did you think of it only after the Jewish people liberated the territory from the Jordanian occupation whose legality even you, the Arab League, never recognized? What did you know all those years about “the rights of the Palestinian people” that you don’t know today? And why is Israeli “occupation” worse than Jordanian occupation?

Just imagine that we had made a peace agreement with Assad’s Syria. Would the Saudi Arabian jihadists, followers of al Qaeda who want to eliminate Assad, honor the peace agreement that he signed with the Zionists? And what about the Palestinians in Jordan -  if they will also rise up and overthrow the royal house that the British imported from Saudi Arabia, are you sure that they would honor the agreement that that royal house signed with us over the Palestinians’ objections? Are you willing to assure us that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has taken over Egypt, will always honor the peace agreement with Israel after all the years that they said that they would cancel it when they could? Just to remind you, Israel has had agreements of mutual recognition on different levels with Qatar, the United Emirates and Tunisia. Why did they cancel these agreements and close the Israeli diplomatic missions? Is this what your signature is worth?

Israeli intelligence and security officers again have foiled an imminent plot against soldiers and civilians, this time by a Hamas cell in the Ramallah area that worked with partners in terror from Hamas.

The problem is who knows how many more terrorist cells have stayed under Israel’s radar? The IDF reported that last month there were hundreds of rock-throwing and firebombing attacks by Palestinian Authority Arabs who have not yet graduated to the stage of guns and knives.

One “graduate” stabbed to death a Jew from Samaria last on the, and the terrorist’s father said the 24-year-old murdered carried out “the duty of all Palestinians who suffer from the aggression of the army and the settlers,” stated al-Zaghal’s father, Ali al-Zaghal.

One day after the stabbing death of Eviatar Borovzky, father of five. The Fatah party, headed by IDF PA Chairman Mahmoud Abba, posted on its Facebook page praise for the terrorist.

The Hamas cell in the Ramallah area that was arrested by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the IDF is one of many that exist with the encouragement of Abbas’s party.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the IDF arrested the cell month earlier this year. The   arrests were announced in March, but details of the plots were not released until Wednesday, when indictments were filed.

The ringleader is a layer from a Ramallah village and who was identified as 26-year-old Ahmed Fahida, who worked with a Hamas terrorist from Gaza, named Ahmed Uda. Fahida’s mission to kidnap a soldier and use him for negotiations with Israel before killing him,

Fahida and another unnamed terrorist also were ready to collect weapons and build rockets and escalate the war against Israelis in Judea and Samaria and in urban centers.

Even a primitive Kassam rocket launched from Samaria could inflict huge damage and loss of life with a strike in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or the Ben Gurion Airport. It also would cause political and diplomatic earthquake in Jerusalem and Washington.

Despite the success in stopping most major terrorist attacks, so far, the IDF has been at a loss to protect Israeli motorists on the roads.

A total of 615 rock-throwing attacks were reported in March. That is a rate of 20 a day and does not include dozens or hundreds of others that are not reported.

In addition, at least 72 firebombs were hurled at soldiers and civilians last month.

In the last week of April alone, 119 rock-throwing attacks and 18 firebomb attack were recorded.

A report from The Tower replicates a tweet, including a photo, from the Twitter account of the English-speaking wing of the Hamas terrorist organization. Published Thursday, it shows children, presumably photographed somewhere inside darkest Hamas-controlled Gaza, role-playing a funeral. The proud message: children in the society we are creating here love death; they even incorporate funerals of children into their play.

Powerful forces at work inside Palestinian Arab society, largely ignored by observers in the West, have created a culture that grotesquely encourages children to embrace death as a way of advancing the political intrigues of their parents’ and grandparents’ generation. In throwing this in the faces of observers, they appear to be offering an argument that demonstrates their determination and commitment. We wrote about this topic last week.

It’s certainly a mistake to think that it’s only the Islamist ultra-extremists of Hamas that are busy promoting self-destruction among the children of Palestinian Arab society. There is abundant evidence on-line testifying to how the ‘moderate’ Palestinian Authority regime of Mahmoud Abbas has done the same for years. (See for instance, out post here). It’s further proof of how Abbas and his circle of despots are fully engaged in creating the conditions by which a young generation will grow to become, in their words, fertilizer and dirt. That, incredibly, is the vision they and Hamas have marketed with distinction to their people. Child abuse more shocking and large-scale than this is hard to imagine.

The unabashed adoption of death-cult values is one of the factors behind the appalling statistics buried inside this past week’s monumental Pew Research Center global survey of Muslims. Based on 38,000 face-to-face interviews in 80-plus languages with Muslims across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, it provides some startling insights.

Globally, most Moslims reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians. But the country-by-country numbers reveal sizable minority views. Around 10% of U.S. Muslims now believe suicide bombing or violence against civilians in the name of Islam are “often justified”; a further 7% say it is “sometimes justified to defend Islam” [source]. Fifteen percent of Jordanians and of Turks see such attacks against civilians as a legitimate means of “defending Islam against its enemies.” This violent minority accounts for 26% of people in Bangladesh and 29% in Egypt.

Top of the list as the most enthusiastic proponents of killing those whom they see as enemies of their religion: Palestinian Arabs, 40% of whom are pro-suicide bombing. Fleshing the picture out a little, eighty nine percent of Palestinian Muslims favor the idea that women must always “obey” their husband, and want the imposition of Sharia law in their society.

It’s hard to argue that the strategy of the P.A. and the Hamas is not working.

Many civilized people looking on with rising horror from the outside, are asking themselves how much longer the world can tolerate the participation of child-abuse-friendly political figures in respectable multilateral discussions.

Visit This Ongoing War.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

Is it true that Palestinians cannot hold new elections because of Israeli security measures?

This is a claim, often made in the U.S., Canada and parts of Europe, is that the Palestinians have not been able to hold new presidential and parliamentary elections for the past five years because of Israeli army checkpoints and that it will be impossible for the Palestinians to hold new elections in the future so long as Israel maintains these checkpoints..

Another claim is that Israel is responsible for the fact that Palestinians enjoy no democracy in their two separate entities in the disputed territories.

First, it is worth noting that such claims are often made by people living in the West, and not by Palestinians living there.

These people in the West like to think they are pro-Palestinian, but by their consistent distortion of facts, they seem in reality to be more anti-Israeli than pro-Palestinian. They never advocate against the repression and corruption that are actually stifling the Palestinians. Instead, they prefer to ignore the reality on the ground and often blame Israel for all that goes wrong for the Palestinians.

Not surprisingly, many Palestinians seem to be much more pragmatic and realistic than the anti-Israel spokesmen sitting in Washington, New York and London.

The Palestinians know, for example, that were it not for the continued power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, they would have had free elections several years ago.

The Palestinians, moreover, know that Israeli checkpoints have nothing to do with restricting freedom of expression and voting. They are fully aware that the checkpoints are there to stop terror attacks and not democracy or reforms.

In the past, despite Israeli security measures and checkpoints, Palestinians did have free and democratic elections for the presidency and parliament.

Israeli “occupation” did not prevent Hamas from winning the January 2006 parliamentary election.

Not only did Israel freely allow Arab residents of Jerusalem to run and vote in that election, but for the first time ever, Israel opened its post offices in Jerusalem so that Arab voters could cast their ballots in the 2006 election, and permitted a number of Hamas candidates from Jerusalem to contest the vote.

Since then, Palestinians have held different elections for various bodies in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria -.ed], including municipalities, university campuses and professional unions.

Needless to say, these elections were all held despite the presence of Israeli checkpoints.

Israel has never stopped Palestinians from holding free elections or implementing administrative and financial reforms and there have never been any complaints from Palestinians about Israeli attempts to obstruct these elections or prevent them.

The Fatah and Hamas leaders are the only ones to blame for ongoing divisions and rivalry in the Palestinian arena. It is these leaders, and not Israel, who do not want to see reforms and democracy in the Palestinian Authority.

The checkpoints are there to stop suicide bombers and other terrorists, and not to prevent anyone from running in an election or forming a new political party.

Hamas and Fatah do not tolerate competition. When a Palestinian religious figure, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, recently announced his intention to run in the next presidential election, Palestinian thugs in the city of Hebron torched his car. Palestinian Authority security forces have also been harassing Tamimi supporters in a bid to deter him from participating in the election.

Similarly, Hamas has been cracking down on Palestinian activists who have openly been challenging the radical Islamic movement’s rule in the Gaza Strip.

It is worth reminding those people who profess love the Palestinians that there are no Israeli checkpoints inside the Gaza Strip to foil either Palestinian elections or democracy, and that those in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria -ed.] do not foil elections or democracy, either.

But the anti-Israel spokesmen in the U.S., Canada and Europe are not going to let facts get in their way. They seem determined to continue spreading lies that are harmful not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians, who want see an end to tyranny and corruption.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

A Palestinian Authority terrorists shot at an Israeli car near Maaleh Adumim and terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza fired two mortar shells on the Western Negev Thursday evening.

No injuries were reported in  the attacks, which came two days after a PA Arab stabbed to death a Jewish father of five children in northern Samaria.

The shooting at the Israeli car occurred near the community of Mitzpeh Yericho, between Maaleh Adumin and Jericho. The driver is from the town of Mevasseret Tzion, west of Jerusalem, and an  occupant in the car was identified as a tourist from Europe. The attackers shot at the vehicle shortly after the two had returned from a hike.

Soldiers conducted a search or the shooter, who has not yet been found.

In  the south, two mortar shells were fired on the Eshkol region in what is becoming a daily occurrence, possibly Islamic terrorist organizations challenging Hamas’ authority. The shells exploded in an open area.