Today, an Israeli Government Review Committee published a long-awaited report on the Mohammed Al Durah incident, determining that the Palestinian boy was in fact not harmed by Israeli forces and did not die in the exchange of fire on September 30, 2000 at the Netzarim Junction in Gaza.

The Israeli committee arrived at the conclusion which had been reached by other serious observers who have studied the incident (and its tragic consequences) over the years: The incident was in all likelihood a hoax.

The report was released just three days before a French court is to rule on a defamation case involving the producer who broke the story for France 2, Charles Enderlin, and the French media analyst who accused Enderlin of fabricating the story, Philippe Karsenty.  (You can learn more about the background, evidence, and consequences of the Al Durah incident here.)

The following is my fisking of the original report in the Guardian on the Al Durah incident, written by Suzanne Goldenberg and published on Oct. 3, 2000 and titled ‘Making of a martyr”:

Suzanne Goldenberg begins her Oct. 3, 2000 Guardian account of an incident which had taken place three days earlier, near the Netzarim Junction in Gaza, ‘Making of a martyr’, thus:

A circle of 15 bullet holes on a cinder block wall, and a smear of darkening blood. That is what marks the spot where a terrified 12-year-old boy spent his final moments, cowering in his father’s arms, before he was hit by a final shot to the stomach, and slumped over, dead. Those last minutes in the life of Mohammed al-Durrah, captured in sickening detail by a Palestinian cameraman working for French TV, have taken on a power of their own. His death, aired around the world on Saturday night, has become the single searing image of these days of bloody rioting.

Goldenberg, as with nearly every journalist who reported on the incident, was relying entirely on a one minute, deceptively edited, France 2 video, as well as uncorroborated Palestinian “eyewitness” accounts.

While the the video purported to show the boy’s final moments – filmed by stringer named Talal Abu Rama, and which was cut by France 2 producer Charles Enderlin – the last few seconds showed a clearly alive boy lifting his hands and peeking out through his fingers and then slowly putting his arm down.

There is no video or still photos – despite the numerous journalists at the scene – of the boy being carried away in a stretcher, or being loaded onto an ambulance.

Additionally, despite claims that the IDF fired on the boy and his father for 40 minutes – which somehow only managed to produce a dozen or so bullet holes in the wall and barrel – and supposedly died of a stomach wound, it evidently didn’t seem odd to Goldberg that there was only a “smear” of blood?

Goldenberg:

The pictures of Mohammed’s death seemed not just to encapsulate the horror of these last five days but also to have become its motor.

Though more Palestinians have been killed since Mohammed’s death – including a two-year-old yesterday – it is his image that haunts Israel. For all of the claims of the prime minister, Ehud Barak, and other officials that their soldiers only fire to protect Israeli lives, Mohammed’s death seems an irrefutable reply.

Here, any semblance of objective reporting is shrewn to pieces. Not only in the last sentence of this passage is Goldberg determining Israeli guilt in the boy’s death, but imputing malice to the entire army – all based on 63 seconds of video.

Goldenberg:

By the end of the weekend the evidence was pointing to a still more chilling conclusion: that the 12-year-old boy and his father were deliberately targeted by Israeli soldiers.

The blood libel begins.

Goldenberg has now established – a mere four days following the incident – that the 12-year-old Palestinian child was deliberately targeted by Israeli soldiers.

Caught in a burst of firing, the pair sought shelter behind a concrete water butt, about 15 yards to the east of the Palestinian post, diagonally opposite the Israeli position. The father gestured frantically towards the Israelis, as if pleading with them to stop firing. They did not.

Residents of the Haredi Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem hurled dozens of rocks at Haredi soldiers Sunday, according to Jerusalem police. No one was reported injured.

Firemen were called to the scene to put out fires that the attackers set in large garbage containers. When the police arrived, the stone attackers fled.

CIA director John Brennan made an unannounced visit to Israel to discuss the situation in Syria with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Friday.

They reportedly compared intelligence assessments on Syria and its two-year civil war and talked about Israel’s intent to continue striking shipments of advanced weapons destined for Hezbollah from Iran via Syria.

Syria has threatened to strike back at Israel the next time it strikes a weapons system on its soil, Britain’s Sunday Times reported.  Two alleged Israeli airstrikes on Syrian military sites earlier this month reportedly targeted long-range missiles in transit from Iran to Hezbollah.

Brennan also met with Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Mossad head Tamir Pardo, according to reports.

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?

Enlisted soldiers and reservists from across the political spectrum expose the IDF failure in Judea and Samaria stone throwing and firebombing incidents: silence, ignoring reality, conflicting commands, entrenchment and escape.

“What you feel at the frontline is that they’re telling you, really, ‘Be a sponge, be a potted plant, just don’t make us look bad, don’t start fires.’ I can tell you that what happened to our company at this frontline is that people have undergone change. People have been educated into paralysis,” says Master Sergeant Y., 31′ who recently completed his reserves stint in an infantry battalion in Hebron.

The above testimony of a soldiers who has served at the Judea and Samaria front is not unique. It is part of several dozen testimonies accumulated in recent weeks by researchers for Makor Rishon from reserves soldiers and enlisted men, and they all tell a very similar story:

In hundreds of events of Arab provocation which frequently included stone and firebomb throwing at IDF soldiers, the IDF reaction has been silence, ignoring the provocations, entrenchment and escape.

The soldiers who were interviewed belong to the full political and cultural span: religious and secular, left and right wing.

When asked to describe their experiences at the frontline, they all used very similar expressions: “shame,” “humiliation,” “castration,” and “impotence.”

They spoke freely of situations where they ran away or hid from Arabs. “We went out to do a block and check between two villages at one in the morning,” M., 28, a company commander who did his reserve duty near Ramallah, recalled. “After 15 minutes in the field, we strated hearing whistles from the nearby village. We realized they were going to violate the public order. We were eight altogether, I was the chief. I knew it would take time to receive backup if we asked for it. I said, ‘It’s jot for us,” and we pulled out. We simply vanished. We ran.

“I came out of it nervous. I felt defeated. My soldiers told me, there we go again, fleeing the scene. IDF defeatism. I felt we had been brought out there as pawns in a game of chess, just to show up, not to act.”

Many soldiers argue that they aren’t being permitted to take care of violations of the public order, as well as of rock and firebomb throwing, while the number of these events keeps going up.

“You stand there like a dummy with nothing to do,” L., 25, a recently discharged Armor officer who served in Judea and Samaria related. “The policy is ‘Restraint,’ they call it ‘Containment,’ all kind of laundered words and nonsense. We are completely neutralized. We are soldiers with weapons, five magazines each, but our hands are cuffed behind our backs. We’re not permitted to defend ourselves at the most elementary level. How is it even conceivable that someone would raise his hand on an IDF soldiers and would get to remain standing, even smiling? But that’s the atmosphere right now.”

In recent weeks, enlisted and reservist IDF soldiers started a Facebook group called “Let the IDF Win,” whose goal is to educate the public and bring about a substantial change in the rules of engagement.

Senior IDF officers insist there’s nothing wrong with the rules of engagement, only in their application. Many agree that there is a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding, even defeatism, born by a permanent disconnect between the top brass and the fighting men and women on the ground. The most damaging component here is the threat of an investigation, should soldier react forcefully to Arab provocation.

“The spirit has changed,” L. explains. “There’s no longer an eagerness for action, for confrontation. Our feeling, as middle rank officers, is that even when action is called for, you’re better off not acting. If you do something, it’ll only end up with investigations and trouble.”

L. described a situation where an Arab “mooned” him right in front of his face. He says he felt humiliated, but when his soldiers urged him to shoot the Arab with a rubber bullet, preferably right in the “moon,” he told them to calm down.

“Because when the investigators ask me why I shot him, and I said it was because I felt humiliated, that’s not a good enough answer,” he explains.

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.”

Two religious teenagers, one a convert from India and the other born in Baltimore, have won the world championship in Thailand-style kick-boxing for their weight class.

Officially known as Muay Thai, the combat sport is known as “the art of eight weapons” because of the use of fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet.

One might expect that world champs in the kick-boxing sport would be huge gorillas from the Amazon, but two winners in the girls’ championships held in Thailand recently are none other than two religious girls from Israel.

One is Nili Block, who was born in Baltimore and moved with her family to Israel around 15 years ago. The other is Sarah Avraham, whose family was close friends with Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, two of the six victims of the Muslim terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008.

Having already been acquainted with the Jewish religion through their association with the Holtzbergs, they decided to convert and move to Israel after the terrorist attack.

Nili and Sarah train five times a week at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, attacking a punching bag to sharpen their skills under the supervision of a coach. Their rigorous regime paid off in Thailand, where they were crowned champions after Nile defeated her Bulgarian opponent in the flyweight class of 112-118 pounds, while Nili beat her British opponent in the 125-138-pound class.

Nili is an all-round athlete. Before flying to Thailand for the championships, she ran in the 6-mile Jerusalem Marathon in March and win first place in the women’s 16-19 age group, finishing ahead of 500 runners in her category. Later the same month, she won the 10th Amateur-Pro Muay Thai Championships in Bangkok.

“Nili is amazing − slim and tall, she’s built for this sport, and she possesses quite an array of weapons. She can devastate an opponent with her hands, knees and feet, and she has perfect technique,” said Shuki Rozensweing, an Israeli boxer who won the World Muay Thai Association and World Muay Thai Federation unified title in April 2011.

He told the Thai BigChili website, “She is a complete fighter with a high IQ for the sport…. A fight is not only won on strength. Nili won all three rounds against the Bulgarian girl, who was physically stronger, by virtue of her superior technique.”

She is in the 12th grade and has to decide this year whether to enlist in the IDF or serve in “Sherut Leumi,” national service.

The IDF would love to have her in its ranks. She says she is not sure if she wants to miss out serving as a regular soldier and suspend her boxing talents, but Shuki thinks she has a good chance to receive the IDF’s special athletic status, which would allow her to continue to train.

Besides that, let’s see what happens if an Arab terrorist starts up with her.

Nile discovered Muay Thai through her other after the family moved to Israel.

‘‘My mother was at that time a volunteer police woman attached to the Jerusalem police department and she was looking for some kind of martial arts which would be beneficial for her work,” said Nili. “I went with her as she looked for a Muay Thai training camp and I started to train with her. I stopped training for two years while going to school and resumed when I was 13.” Her father, a dentist, supports and encourages her to box.

So much for stereotyped-orthodox families.

The most thrilling moment in the Thai championships was hearing the Israel national anthem Hatikvah two times, once after Nili won her gold medal and the second time when Sarah won.

Sarah’s story is no less spectacular than Nili’s.

Her father is a doctor and was the family physician to the Holtzbergs, who ran the Chabad House in Mumbai.

Sarah was 14 years old when the family converted and then moved to Kiryat Arba, where she learns at a religious “ulpana” high school.

Hevron resident Michael Pollack spotted her talent and put her in touch with Thai boxing coach Eddie Yusopov.

Keeping in mind that Abraham and Sarah were buried in the Patriarchs’ Cave in Hevron, Pollack told the Times of Israel last year, “She draws her strength from where we live in Kiryat Arba. That gives her an inner strength that explodes in the ring.”

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.