The Biggest Honor Killing of All

A Catholic friend sent me the link to an article with this description:

The editor-in-chief of the Times of Oman, that country's paper of record, published an above-the-fold justification of the Holocaust. Since I don't have a permanent link, I'm reproducing the whole article. At the moment the link is: http://www.timesofoman.com/viewpoint.asp

Update note- two readers have sent me the permanent link.

And yes, as you would expect, it is an excrescence- but one that is so blunt, clear and unsophisticated in its expression of the underlying lunacy of how the Arab world’s “elite” view of the world that it is an invaluable tool for understanding not just the Arab’s problem with Israel (and culture in general) but also the reason that the western left is so firmly on their side. If you choose not to read it in its entirety, I'll understand. Just skip the indented stuff in italics but, please, meet me down below it and follow with me where it leads.

How Israel became a terrorist state
Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali

I HAVE been following the shameful and painful events in our Arab region ever since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. Thanks to my readings, I am aware of the aims of the West in choosing Palestine as a homeland for the Jews through what is known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, crafted by the then British foreign minister, Arthur James Balfour, to fulfil his so-called promise. I have also come to know the fundamental objectives behind the establishment of the Jewish state.

We the Arabs know and, in fact, the entire world knows, the historical truth that the Jewish people had been a scattered lot with no homeland of their own as they had been living in other people’s lands. Some of the Jewish people used to live in Arab countries. There they lived like Arab citizens enjoying all the rights and duties. In fairness, however, we should say that the Arab Jews were far more polite, well-behaved and good-hearted than the European Jews.

But as it happened, the Europeans, the Russians and the Americans had a different attitude towards the Jews. They must have had their own reasons or justifications for expelling the Jews out of their countries and looking for an alternative homeland for them. The Jews were found to be harmful, racial, hateful and hypocritical and that was why they were hated by the governments and the peoples of their host countries and why those countries, especially Britain, agreed to find, as quickly as possible, a homeland for the Jewish people outside Europe. Unfortunately, Palestine was the place they chose to be the homeland for the Jews as it seemed an easy proposition because it was under the British mandate. As we all know, Palestine is a God-made land whereas Israel is a man-made land.

When the Western countries agreed to make Palestine the land where the Jews could converge from all over the world, the former had two clear objectives. The first was, of course, to get rid of the Jews along with their problems, once and for all. The second was to use the Jews in the Arab region as an agent to realise the Western interests and to be a permanent thorn in the side of the Arab world.

It is illustrative to browse through the relevant pages of history to know the real history of the Jews in Germany. You would then come to know why Hitler had taken harsh measures against them. The entire economy of Germany, including banks, publishing houses, jewellery stores, light and heavy industries and almost all economic organisations of consequence, was under the total control of the Jews.

They muddied every aspect of the economy by perpetrating fraud after fraud on common people. This unprepossessing situation annoyed the German citizens no end and impelled Hitler to punish the Jews for their bad deeds.

The United States today finds itself in the same predicament as Germany back then. Now in the US, the Jews wield enormous control over all important decisions, whether they relate to politics, economy or media. No American citizen is free today to utter a single word about international or even national issues. This is the reason the American views on various issues being relayed to the world through the media are in fact the views of the Jews.

No wonder, we witness American media relentlessly broadcasting false reports portraying Israel to the world as a state oppressed by the Arabs who are trying to uproot Israel. On the other hand, when Israel perpetrates unabashed massacres against the Arabs in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria or Egypt, they would be justified as acts carried out in self-defence to fend off uprooting threats. Israel manages to escape international punishment because it has the full support of some big powers led by superpower America who invariably reject the majority decisions of the UN Security Council if and when they condemn the inhuman practices of Israel against the Arabs.

Now, it is the turn of the European Union to support the US stance that always favours Israel. Therefore the EU can do nothing to stop the ongoing Israeli massacres in Palestine. The EU feels it has done its duty by condemning the brutal massacres and has politely asked the Israelis not to use force against the civilians. It is as if the Israelis have the right to kill those who are not civilians, especially the Palestinians who are fighting to regain their looted land and fundamental rights!

This was how Israel became a terrorist state and why the Arabs fear Israel. If the superpowers and the international community as a whole, do not change their positions with regard to the facts of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, Israel will gleefully continue with its arrogance and terror, the Arabs will continue to wallow in their weakness and the American/Jewish media will go on depicting Arabs as terrorists and Israel as a puny state surrounded by many enemies.
- emzedjali@timesofoman.com

I sent back my immediate reaction to my friend:

It is a textbook-worthy example of the crazy distortion that living in and trying to rationalize an honor-shame culture leads one into. The unspoken, bottom-line issue for the writer of this article is that Arab Muslims are supposed to be the master race and he is trying his best to make sense of why they come off so poorly in comparison with the rest of the world. This is the reason that Israel is such a telling wound to Arab pride. After all, if you owned a farm and it produced nothing but crab grass and cow dung year after year and then a Downs Syndrome patient from the independent living center downtown set up a shack in a tiny corner of your poorest field and started to grow healthy crops and prime beef on it, you'd be humiliated too. The difference is that having been raised as a westerner, you would eventually swallow the shame and learn from your new neighbor and become even more prosperous than they are.

Pity the poor Arab, they are unable to learn from the success of others (or even from their own failures!) because they are trapped in a cycle of honor and shame. As my friend and mentor Richard Landes often points out, shame in the Arab culture requires blood to restore honor.

Something clicked for me when I slapped my pinky on the enter key and sent this off. For the past week I have been spinning my wheels on a broader version of the question I posed in my post “Can Public Broadcasting Really be This Contemptible?” The real question, and I am not to first one to have posed it, is “Why do so many otherwise intelligent people ignore and deny the obvious savagery and danger of the Islamist Jihad?” What do the intellectual elite and the chattering classes actually have in common with Hamas, al Qaeda, the Taliban and The Saudis that allows them to accept and even applaud the bloody, violent, misogynist fascist behavior and writings while they revile our elected leaders and condemn our democratic government and its allies as oppressors.

I have written a number of speculations on that question in the past and I was resolved not to just go over old ground but to add something substantial if I could. In firing off that snap reply, I opened the new door I had been looking for.

It is fascinating that, at first glance, the Arab Muslims and The Left appear to have even more reasons to fear and distrust each other as they do points of conflict with Israel, western civilization, capitalism, the military and the business community. After all, the Muslim treatment of women, children and gays and their absolute antagonism (surpassing even their hatred of Jews) for atheists, pagans and agnostics would seem to be deal-killers for any leftist and the anarchic bent of the left is completely at odds with the desire of the Islamists to institute authoritarian Sharia law and a World-wide Caliphate.

But these are only problems of doctrine, theory and logic. If the bond between these two camps seems to make no sense, it is because political doctrine, logic and fact have almost nothing to with it. Caliphate Islam and Communism/Socialism/Progressivism are, after all, both utopian fascist movements. I have quoted Louis Menand in two other posts, writing that in a fascist movement…, “…official ideology can be, and usually is, absurd on its face, and known to be absurd by the leaders who preach it.” Given that absurdity, the actual details of ideology are much less important than the strength of the movement to dictate complete allegiance, the rejection and liquidation of counter-fascists and the conquest of any other nation - especially those that might be more successful or more democratic. Clearly, the left and the Islamists do not see each other as threats- at least not nearly on the same level as the threat they see in Israel, The U.S. and Western Civilization.

They are, of course, correct. One of the few things that can draw together common cause between fascist groups with entirely opposed “official ideologies” is the overwhelming shame of knowing that your movement’s goals and tenets are mistaken, embarrassingly counter-productive and contrary to human nature- and that there is a thriving example of the alternative right next door.

This is the disease at the heart of Caliphate Islam. Mr. Al Zedjali inadvertently gives us a glimpse at this when he ends his article this way:

“This is why the Arabs fear Israel. If the superpowers and the international community as a whole, do not change their positions with regard to the facts of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, Israel will gleefully continue with its arrogance and terror, the Arabs will continue to wallow in their weakness and the American/Jewish media will go on depicting Arabs as terrorists and Israel as a puny state surrounded by many enemies.”

In typical fascist double speak he never actually calls the truth a lie. He does not say Israel is a super power and has no right to self-defense. If he were to do that he knows very well that arguments would be mounted against his veracity that would further humiliate him. Instead, he merely informs the western powers that they must act as though the truth is a lie.

And if they don’t? Here he betrays himself and the shame that drives the fascist Islamic Caliphate movement with breathtaking candor. He writes: “the Arabs will continue to wallow in their weakness”.

It is a variant of this same heart-wounded emotion that drives the fascist imperative in Progressivism, Socialism and Communism in all of their various forms. They are all utopian movements that draw to them people who need to feel superior to other “normal” people. Leftists tend to come from very specific sub-groups of western civilization. These include the leisure-advantaged classes (especially children of the successful like William Ayers, the British communists like Philby, and their ilk), the career “do-gooders” (Dan Rather, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Ben Wedeman, Charles Enderlin, Bill Moyers) and the safe (tenured) but unsatisfied Academics (Chomsky, Zinn, Churchill). In true elitist fashion, they consider themselves more educated, and of better and more nuanced” judgment than the “normal” people who work at jobs, have sincere religious beliefs and do tangible things.

Barack Obama famously got “too candid” about the smug Progressive attitude of superiority toward working class people at a gathering of elite progressive supporters during the last election when he said, “So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” Most leaders of the progressive movement, in spite of its origins in labor activism, look down on honest labor and spend their lives in descending spirals of empty ideology, angry protests and cultural sabotage that may give them transient thrills of victory (or at least vindication) while they sink deeper into the suspicion that they are really unproductive leeches that sap the vitality of the culture and undermine its future. Witness, the lack of surprise (let alone outrage!) about the recent parade of elitist tax cheats that have been nominated as the leadership of the new administration in Washington.

The left and the Islamists, each in their individual ways, share that very same painful dilemma, a cognitive dissonance which I analogized with that fable of the Downs Syndrome Farmers I used in my reply to my friend. Here is how the broader statement of the analogy goes:

"If we are supposed (as we assert) to be better than everybody else, why doesn’t our status and condition reflect that superiority? If we are so good why aren’t we richer, more respected, better loved, more secure than everyone else? Why do we feel so humiliated and unsuccessful? Why aren’t we in charge? Why do we have to answer their questions and listen to their criticisms? Why don’t they recognize how much holier, smarter, nicer and stronger we are and just do what we tell them to do?"

Does this shame, caused by the rupture of delusions of paranoid grandiosity, sound familiar? Last spring I wrote two posts (here and here) that explored the striking parallels between the Islamists behavior toward Israel, The U.S., and Western Civilization and the stereotypical cycle of violence between abusive men and the spouses they batter. Abusive men beat and rape women to satisfy those very same feelings of shame. Whether it is played out on a national scale in the little land “between the river and the sea”, on a personal scale in the back bedroom of a fourth-floor walk-up or on a civilizational stage between Islam and Western Civilization, this is the central drama of the honor-shame personality/culture.

Another blogging friend left a comment on my last post (the one about the German police who broke into a Jewish home to take down an Israeli flag rather than discipline the Muslim mob who were threatening violence) that pointed up yet another strong resemblance that I had failed to note. Here is the comment:
xanthippaschamberpot said...

My grandmother remembered the Nazi-German occupation. She used to tell me many stories...
This makes me afraid.
This is 'battered wife syndrome' on a national scale.
Really, think about it: telling a woman to 'not do anything that might set off a violent and abusive husband' has been recognized as a way to increase the abuse. How come telling a person to 'not do anything that might set off a violent and abusive religious/nationalist fanatic' is not perceived to be just as destructive???”

Right! Until we see that asking “Why do they hate us” is just as cruel and destructive as asking “What did you do to make your husband hit you?” We will never really understand the trouble we are in.

And that brings me back to our friend Mr. Al Zedjali. If you want to fully grasp the racism, bad faith and supremacist attitude he is (barely) concealing take a look at what this paragraph looks like with only a few words changed…

We men know and, in fact, the entire world knows, the historical truth that the women had been a scattered lot with no homes of their own as they had been living in men’s homes. Some of the women used to live in our homes. There they lived like women everywhere - enjoying all the rights and duties. In fairness, however, we should say that those women were far more polite, well-behaved and good-hearted...

I only changed Arab to “men”, Jew to “woman” and clipped a few other words and just look at how sexist and even misogynist it is. I might just as easily have changed the “Jews” to black people how about that sentence “In fairness, however, we should say that those black people were far more polite, well-behaved and good-hearted...” Oh hell, why not just call them “darkies”. Sadly, many on the left will tolerate such a statement about Jews where they won’t about women and blacks.

And why can’t otherwise rational people in the west see the inherent hypocracy and illogicality of the alliance of the left and Caliphate Islam? Why can’t they, at least, see how mismatched they are?

Richard Landes has written with wonderful clarity on honor/shame culture and so, since I had this realization of the “bond of shame” between the progressive left and Caliphate Islam, I have gone back and reread much of what he has written. One of his most important of his explorations of the subject is his article, Edward Said and the Culture of Honour and Shame: Orientalism and Our Misperceptions of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Published in: Israel Affairs, Volume 13, Issue 4 October 2007 , pages 844 – 858. The following passage was of particular interest this time through.

Said’s underlying point is that all cultures are essentially the same, and if anyone presents the Arabs (his major concern) as significantly different (even in a positive - e.g., Romantic - light), then that is a form of racism. Hence his particular disdain for discussions of honour and shame culture applied to the Arab world.
Such an analysis appeals specifically to a liberal/progressive approach that assumes what Said would have us accept as an unnamed axiom - that people are basically the same everywhere; that it is unacceptable to generalize about the ‘otherness’ of anyone else.

That unnamed axiom has a mirror image in the Progressive principle that the individual is not as important as the collective and that with the "right" education all people can be made to believe in the socialist ideals- (from each according to his means to each according to their needs, no culture is superior to any other, etc...,). This goes to the very heart of the humiliating futility and purposelessness of the modern Progressive. On one hand they have declared themselves the definitive authorities of a new “post-modern methodology” to understand the world and at the same time, they declare that there is nothing to investigate or understand.

Landes recently wrote in a recent post about a notable media misrepresentation from the Gaza War coverage:

Note the careful circumlocutions and the framing of the presentation: the narrator makes it clear this is not France2 footage, that it may be suspicious (although that word is never uttered). He may well know that this is unreliable but wants to use it anyway.

And the reason for that, is that this footage fits into his narrative seamlessly: “Israelis slaughter Palestinian civilians mercilessly.” The preceding scene covered a strike that Palestinian sources claim came from an Israeli naval vessel firing off the coast. Then, to drive home the point, he runs with the toxic footage.

The narrative is clear: Everything we ever read about how Western imperialists engaged in rampant, genocidal slaughter of native populations… is true again, of the Israelis. Think a scene from The Last Samurai, where he feverishly remembers the slaughter of Indian civilians… that’s the Israelis.

(The bitter irony of it all, is that the Arabs are unquestionably frustrated genocides, who openly declare their intentions to anyone who cares to listen.)

What this incident reveals most strikingly is what one might call the irresistible appeal that MSM reporters — especially Europeans like the folks at France2 — have for footage and stories that make Israel look bad, or even worse, like the most ruthless murderers around. Little truffles of moral Schadenfreude that make Europeans feel so superior to the Israelis

Of course, journalists never get tired (or ashamed) of serving up those truffles- and they come in so many combinations and shadings of flavor- fascism, totalitarianism, Jew hatred, moral relativism, anti-Zionism, multiculturalism, anti-Semitism, Communism, Socialism, Progressivism, moral superiority, anarchy, nihilism, jaded intellectualism- they mix and blend so subtly that the individual threads are, at times, inextricable. They blend so easily because they all share one thing.

To understand what that thing is, we have to peel back many layers of deception and justification. This thing that masquerades as virtue, piety and kindness is actually the mirror image of those attributes, it is license, arrogance and malice. The content of each is different. For the Islamists part, they have their belief in the coming of the twelfth Mahdi and the prophesied advent of the world wide Caliphate-a kind of paradise on earth. The progressive left is absolutely convinced that peacefulness, reason, negotiation and breaking down the capitalist system will solve all problems. They agree on nothing intellectually or ideologically but they share the much deeper bond of a towering, homicidal rage at the intransigent world and all the normal people in it who faithfully tend to their jobs, businesses and farms only to be looked on as mental defectives, infidels and “little Eichmanns” as they continue not to fall ecstatically in line with absurd, unworkable, utopian notions of the way things should be. Both the Progressives and the Caliphatists, in their own ways, are victims of honor/shame humiliation and they recognize each other as brothers in arms against human nature, reality and the status quo.

Those who pretend to know what is good for us in academia, the media and politics have somehow convinced us that the status quo is a cursed state, that they will show us the way to a better, more equal, secure and peaceful future. They claim to have a more complex and subtle grasp of reality itself. Never mind that when pressed they are always short on facts and plans and long on emotional appeals to belief in compassion, the common good, elimination of suffering and the achievement of world peace. They cannot understand when we don’t share their enthusiasm for what they want to offer us. They are infuriated by questions and requests for hard answers. There is nothing that enrages an elitist so much as underlings who refuse to submit to the superiority of their “betters”. Their brave new world would work just fine if it weren’t for the fractiousness and self-interest of the people in it.

Like the impotent Arab male who bullies, beats and demeans his wife and then wonders why she despises him and wants to escape, the Islamists and the Progressives are in a rage to liquidate the proof of their impotence. Xanthippa, in her comment above, had referred to Battered Woman Syndrome and I have drawn the same parallel in my two posts (linked above) but this is the proof positive that the left and the Islamists are abusive, hypocritical and dangerous. They are experts in how to use our Western openness, politeness, inclusiveness and sense of fair play to manipulate us into allowing ourselves to be blindfolded, bound, beaten and sabotaged. The media, most of academia and a fast growing contingent of our most powerful political leadership are part of this honor/shame based, subversive drive to destroy western civilization. Their desire is to murder the institutions (and the people in them if necessary) whose continuing vitality and strength exposes the imbecilic utopianism of their “more nuanced and sophisticated” understanding of reality. They are, in fact, conspiring to assassinate Western Civilization in a Cultural Honor Killing.

Islamofauxia Part II

There have been hundreds of instances like this that have included staged news, misrepresentations, fraud and inaccuracy that have been exposed by the blogosphere and media watchdog organizations. And yet they keep happening.

It was only this past January that Reuters gave us the Gaza Blackout Fraud. You may recall that, in a clear but silly attempt to smear Israel by accusing her of using collective punishment the Hamas propaganda machine produced a number of photographs like the one at the right. This one purports to show the Gaza government working by candlelight because Israel forced a blackout this one is clearly staged as it can be seen that, even with the drapes drawn, the vast majority of the hall is lit quite well by the bright daylight outside.

This next picture is even sillier as the candlelight parade is proceeding down a brightly lit street with street lights clearly visible in the background. It all seems so shamefully transparent and idiotically simple but, for some reason, it never ends.
In reality there is a vast volume of media fraud and misbehavior happening and most of it is far more subtle and sophisticated that these pathetic examples. Day in and day out, a virtual army of organizations and individuals respond to those fabrications and deceptions- publishing all manner of criticism and even ridicule. The offending media ignore what they can, deny most of the rest, fight legal battles to intimidate critics and, when all else fails, they issue bland corrections- and nothing changes.

That is, nothing changed until May 21, 2008. It was on that day that the chief judge in the Enderlin/France2 vs Karsenty appeal case dismissed all charges against Karsenty and confirmed that he had not overstepped reasonable professional ethics when he became one of the first media critics in the world to actually put into words the previously unspeakable fact that it had become apparent that Enderlin and France2 were either complicit or dupes in one of the bloodiest and most destructive frauds in the history of media.

The verdict in that trial was only brought about by seven long years of brilliant, innovative and painstaking work by several people. Among those people, it was Richard Landes of Second Draft and Augean Stables who, when the momentum was failing and the world had turned away, kept working, not as an agitator and accuser but as an honest researcher and synthesizer. His integrity, energy, intellectual honesty and the virtual mountain of solid scholarship he produced over the years lead to his becoming the most respected and influential expert witness to give testimony in that case. It also turned the tide against the intentional manipulation of the media by civil society and it will, if properly followed up, tip the balance away from those in the media who willingly (or blindly) assist them.

Thanks, in large part to Richard Landes, we stand at a true turning point in the single most urgent battle for the future of civilization in the twenty-first century- the quest, no, the absolute necessity, to turn the rising tide of chaos and propaganda in the Mainstream Media and the Cybersphere into a dependable, honest and accurate flow of information.

Second Draft, the organization founded to further Landes’ work is prepared to lead this effort. Having been at the center of the seven year long al Durah controversy and having lived through the two trials testing the work and methods of many researchers/writers we know what is required to identify, expose and destroy Islamofauxia. The combination of judgment, knowledge and skill required is unique. Only Second Draft has done such a complete job.

Our next step is to take these abilities and experience and instill them into an organization that will be on 24 hour standby to address and defeat all future attempts to stage and publish such frauds.

Mark Twain wrote, “A lie can travel all the way around the world before the truth can get out of bed and put its shoes on.” Second Draft aims to be there with boots on, ready to stand in the way of the lie.

We are now planning the next, absolutely essential, step toward building that system. We have begun the arrangements for a major three-day conference that will be the definitive work on the Kfar Qana building collapse- the only news story in history ever to have halted a war in progress. Our Kfar Qana conference has two objectives:
1. Condense the same kind of energy, collaboration and talent that it took to understand and debunk the al Durah incident and bring it to one location for three days and bring it to bear on the already discredited but still widely cited Kfar Qana incident.
2. Use the activities to build the relationships and working methodologies that will allow the same team to form rapid response task forces over the internet in the future.
The team gathering for this conference will include the following areas of expertise:

• Forensic medicine
• Ballistics
• Munitions
• Military equipment and tactics
• International law
• Crime-scene investigation
• Arabic language and culture
• Journalism and media
• Cinema
• Forensic digital photography and sound
• Intelligence
• Structural Engineer

There will also be Israel Defense Force experts, media people, bloggers and Lebanese investigators who were on the ground for the initial investigations.

There is a way of winning the information war and it is not just to "correct" and exhort- as if we were correcting mere mistakes. Islamofauxia is a deadly and intentional problem. Second Draft's combination of solid research and aggressive follow through has been successful beyond our modest means, with your help we can ramp up our capabilities so and continue to turn the tide.

First of all, we need your help to make this conference a success. We would like to hold it this December but there is much to do and arraigning a secure venue, the technical resources and travel for all our experts will not be cheap. Please, help us with a contribution today to support this urgent and vital work!

This is your opportunity to take a pivotal role in insuring that civil society will survive the current challenges and thrive well into the twenty first century.

To donate by PayPal just go to the Second Draft web site http://www.seconddraft.org/ and click on the “Donate” button at the lower right.

If you prefer to send a check, Please make it payable to Second Draft and send it to Second Draft, P.O. Box 150159, Newton Center, MA 02459

Loose Lips Sink Ships- Lessons from al Durah

Richard Landes has a speedily done translation of the court decision up at Augean Stables. This is an astonishing document. It is a glimmer of faithful justice- of Western honesty and courage in a sea of post-modern cynicism; a respite from the onslaught of relativism and moral cowardice.

Is it merely one of the last, flickering flashes of light from the bridge of a sinking ship or is it a signal that the once again the ideals and fairness of the enlightenment are back in charge and pumps will be turned on, at last, to try to save her?

The language is thick and legal and Richard warns that there could be corrections needed but there are a few things that are clear to The Court:
1. Enderlin reported on a staged event as if it was real.
2. The Israelis did not harm, much less target the boy and his father.
3. His report "drew in its wake unprecedented violence throughout the region"
4. In trying to defend his indefensible unprofessionalism he added serious lies and distortions to the original offense.

Two even more important revelations have come out of the al Durah affair. They were not articulated in the decision document but it are very much in the background throughout.

One is that It is now patent and part of the public record that Jihadists have taken the use of the media as a weapon of war to new and deadly standard. Richard Landes has invented a new word, "Pallywood", to describe the tactical practices they employ, the staging of news events, intimidation and manipulation of foreign journalists and the infiltration of the western mainstream media by local "stingers" (many of whom are nothing more than operatives of the palestinian propaganda ministries) This "weaponization" of our media can no longer be denied.

We have also, now derived a new and very clear cautionary tale that might serve as an inspiration (or, at least, a deterrent) for other western media to learn from.

Charles Enderlin, whether he lied intentionally or was duped, got caught. Instead of coming clean and helping to right the ship, he tried to save face by suing. Were it not for the terrible toll in blood and death he has caused, it would have been comical. He did the equivalent of drilling holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water out. I hope the lesson gets through to his fellow journalists. They are the ones most capable and in the best position to can pump the poison out of the bilges and save the ship.

Enderlin's Ocean of Blood- Why the Second Draft is Important

Charles Enderlin is adrift in a rising ocean of blood. He is either so arrogant or so blinded by his fear that he is helpless to do what needs to be done to stem the tide. It is a tragedy of Biblical scale. When it all started, he was riding an exhilarating wave. (Backgound: here, here and here)

In October of 2000 he had what must have been a dream job. He was the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for France2. He got to live in one of the great, cosmopolitan, civilized cities of the world and report daily on a simmering, dangerous, richly symbolic conflict at the cutting edge between civilization and chaos. There was always a story. Because he lived and worked in Jerusalem there was never any censorship or physical threat or even any physical discomfort. He had Palestinian stringers who fed him footage and information from the unsafe and difficult areas so he could sit in Jerusalem, edit film in his fuzzy robe and slippers and be a war correspondent.

I am guessing that he just got too sloppy and arrogant to see how he was being used by his trusted Palestinian sidekick Talal Abu Rahma. Rahma knew the boss wasn’t disposed to check up on his work as long as he delivered serviceable goods and he gave him a juicy scoop once in a while. One day, Rahma overplayed the deal and Enderlin was setup for a fall. The rest of the story boils down to what Enderlin knew, when he knew it and whether or not he would take responsibility for it.

His now controversial report on the alleged shooting of a twelve year old boy named Muhammed al Durah at Netzarim Junction in Gaza vaulted him to the top of the jounalistic world. He had “scooped” everyone and had presented a perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict that had been hinted at by the media and longed for by the liberal and leftists in the dank guilt-ridden recesses of the west- especially Europe. It quickly became apparent that although it had never actually been seen or proven, there was a large and willing potion of the audience that readily took to the image of the Israelis as oppressors and thugs. The film and Enderlin’s presentation of it would, if true, have been proof of murderous brutality by the Israeli army. Enderlin reported that they killed the boy in cold blood. Looking at the report footage now, with the knowledge and background that has come to light it is hard to believe that such ambiguous and poorly staged stuff could have caught the imagination of the world the way it did. But, then, you had the voice of Charles Enderlin telling you what to believe about it in your ear and it is always dangerous to underestimate the size and explosivity of the subterranean lake of anti-Semitic blood-libel that seems to bubble and churn beneath the entire world’s population.

Enderlin’s report and the image it presented roiled that stygian lake from its dormancy. The news media picked it up and propagated it. He suddenly found himself riding a tidal wave of notoriety and recognition. Behaving more like a propagandist than a journalist, he arraigned for his scoop footage to be distributed to any other media outlet that would carry it- free of charge. Usually other media are made to pay dearly for hot items like this, but Charles “Scoopy” Enderlin was in full self-promotion mode.

Still, when questions came up about the sad but oddly bloodless video footage Charles the Delicate, demurred. he refused to back up his report with more proof. Oh, he had more proof, he said, he just didn’t want to bruise our sensitivities. He did it for our own good.

A little more than three weeks after the incident, when some ungrateful defenders of Israel began asking questions and casting doubt on your story and you let it out- (not the actual proof mind you, that might have been too much for us) you told Telerama magazine:

“I cut the images of the child's agony (death throes), they were unbearable. The story was told, the news delivered. It would not have added anything more...”

What a hero he wanted to seem. Not only did he have the goods on the Israelis, he was so very cultivated and civilized about it. Even the Israelis were afraid to call his bluff. What if he did have heart-rending footage of the child’s death throes? They recoiled in horror. Rather than risk even more heart breaking images coming to light, the Israelis pulled back and left it alone.

But a nagging doubt still tormented some of us. Landes, Karsenty, Poller, Gross and others- those with enough faith in what their eyes could see, and enough experience with the Leftist media and its toadying up to the Palestinian propaganda machine to see that it was a bluff and, just as in a poker game, if a bluff is not called, the bluffer wins all.

From the isolation and security of his Jerusalem studio, which he never actually left to investigate this story himself, he had pronounced the boy dead, even as we can see him peeking out from under his arm looking for all the world like a kid who might just be tired of play-acting. It was as if he were saying, “Is it ok to get up? I’m tired of this. I’d like to go home now.”

Meanwhile, if Enderlin had looked down, he would have noticed that the wave he was riding was actually a tsunami of blood. It crashed over the Middle East, inundating it in rage and violence. It has continued to continuously circle the globe, splashing gore wherever it touches

The wave washed over those two off duty Israeli reservists who took a wrong turn, got lost in the west bank and were murdered in Ramallah two weeks after the initial broadcast report aired. More accurately, they were torn limb from bloody limb by an enraged crowd in Ramallah as they chanted the name al Durah over and over. Enderlin might might want us to believe that the savagery in Ramallah might have been worse that day had those “death throes” he used as emotional blackmail been shown. I don’t know how.

In an insensate, vengeful rage they stormed the police station (the police stood by and watched). They beat, stabbed and mutilated the men. They threw them out of a second story window. They pummeled them and mangled them. Finally, they took their internal organs out of their bodies, held them aloft and paraded around with them. I watched that video.

All the while, Monsieur Enderlin was posing as the moderate and even slightly charitable correspondent. He seemed to expect us to thank him for holding back the footage that he claimed to be “really” inflammatory. He had the advantage and no one was able to mount a formidable enough challenge to force his deception into the open. His bosses at France2 backed him completely. So he was able to masquerade as good man who was simply too honest to not tell his compelling story- even if it meant he “had to make the sacrifice” of becoming world renowned in the process. Poor Monsieur Enderlin, thank you for taking the trouble to spare a forlorn world the horror of the truth about Muhammad al Durah’s death- this was so much better.

The wave of blood made it to the US a year later. On September 11, 2001 we here in America watched thousands of our fellow citizens incinerated in airplanes, leaping to their deaths to escape flames in their offices and crushed to a fine powdery dust by collapsing concrete. Afterward we heard Osama bin Laden cite the name of al Durah in righteous indignation in his demonic screed of justification.

Two years later Daniel Pearl was lost under the wave when the name and image of al Durah was used (as incitement and justification) in the video that gruesomely depicted the death by beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter after he was forced to kneel and “confess” to being Jewish. Ask yourself why this blatantly anti-Semitic atrocity inspired some much less horror in the west than the faked death of Muhammad al Durah and you are forced to confront the fact that the people who were harmed the most by this whole sordid affair are the ones who see themselves as the victors of its aftermath.

The greatest harm caused by the wave was done where it first came ashore among the Palestinian people and the larger Islamic world beyond them. Now this one is overlooked very easily because, as he himself has implied, the Arabs and Islamists are held to a very low standard of behavior and comportment- especially by him and most of the rest of the mainstream media. In a stunning example of the pernicious effects of multiculturalism he and others in the employ of France2 have dismissed the staging and fraud exposed bye ven the most superficial analysis of the outtake footage that we have seen that day as just an aspect of “their (the Palestinian) culture”. The Arabs’ atrocious behavior has been excused as “cultural” and been consistently rewarded and reinforced by people like Enderlin that they have become “The People of the Tantrum”.

There was never any doubt that the story about al Durah served as an accelerant to the flames of Islamic inferiority and rage, Enderlin played a leading role in keeping them locked in the dungeon of resentment, intolerance and xenophobia. He gave them a tangible reason to stay enraged and aggressive and he allowed them to let their imaginations run riot on the idea that was even more distressing footage that they had not seen..

From Enderlin’s point of view, what was the downside, really? Even if his report had been truthful, even if he were dealing with us honestly about his reasons for hiding the footage, even if he had fully come forward with all of the rushes, it could hardly have made things worse than they have turned out. It made for a nice steady news cycle; the rage and violence produced as many incidents as he cared to cover, and his part in the fraud (whether as a willing tool or an unwitting useful idiot) gave him a nice cozy access relationship to the newsmakers.

But Last week, when Charles Enderlin showed up in court with nine minutes less video than he had been ordered to appear with, it was clear that he now had dropped the pretense that he had additional and more damning footage. He is now officially not riding the wave any longer; he is in danger of being pulled under by it. His arrogance when he informed the court that the footage that he did not bring either “didn’t concern that day” or “were irrelevant” actually drew laughs from the courtroom. His equally laughable narrations that went along with the actual screening were just as ridiculous.

Perhaps it is just “his culture” (as he would say of the Arabs) as a high priest of media that makes him believe that he can tell the rest of the world what is of concern and what is not relevant but I suspect (and hope) that the judge will want to be the one making that call in her courtroom.

But that is a legal question and subject to the arcane French laws that allowed Enderlin to win the first case against Karsenty without proving that he (Enderlin) had not known that the report he aired on the incident at Netzarim was based on inaccurate information. The way the law is written made it possible for Enderlin to take Karsenty to court and accuse him of libel without having to prove that Karsenty was wrong in what he had said. Thus the French court was at its own discretion on how hard to look at Enderlin. In this second trial, the court has decided that the plausibility of Karsenty’s original assessment of Enderlin’s work should be considered and that is why Enderlin was finally ordered to produce the video.

As of this past Wednesday, the question is now no longer whether Charles Enderlin is a liar or not, the question is only when, if ever, does he tell the truth and how much of the truth does he tell? Was he lying before he was forced to the courtroom or is he lying now? Really, it makes little difference. What matters is that he must lose his license to misinform the public and he must lose it now!

The management at France2 that gave him a platform to misrepresent and then helped him lie and cover-up should be sacked also. Given that France2 is a government agency, the involvement and motives of the French government (at least pre-Sarkosy) must be questioned.

Beyond the tragedy and the necessary punishment of Enderlin and France2 there are still greater and more perplexing unanswered questions. Why did the world so eagerly embrace the al Durah affair as a new reason to fear and hate “The Jews” (as embodied by Israel). Why were so many people and governments so easily sucked in by this transparent jape of a “news” story while the great and stinking atrocities of our times, the slaughter of innocents in suicide attacks, are shrugged and clucked at? Why, even now, though it is has been on shaky ground since 2004 when Enderlin publicly retrenched to the position that the boy was “killed in a crossfire” instead of intentionally by Israelis will the stain not go away? Why has none of the courtroom drama of last week gained any attention from the Western media? Here is a now proven lie, told in arrogance and perpetuated without conscience that has cause a tidal wave of blood. Who will answer for it?

The sad truth is that no one can stop a Tsunami. Once the propagation of the Icon began, there was no holding it back. Only honesty, fact checking and, most important, safeguards against allowing the power of the media to be manipulated by the likes of Talal Abu Rahma who has publicly stated that his professional mission has more to do with his tribal loyalties than with ethical journalism. Accepting an award in Morocco in 2001 for his work, he told a reporter: "I went into journalism to carry on the fight for my people." In other words, Enderlin made himself a dupe to a propagandist from a culture that views journalism as an extension of war- by other means.

It is not enough for us to respond to these media induced tragedies. Once they have the force of a tidal wave, terrible harm is done before we can even open our mouths to speak. We have to identify and contain the irresponsible, undisciplined and dishonest practices (e.g. unholy alliances between hostile government propaganda agents and our all-too-willing media) before they can create devastating images that get a life of their own. That is why Second Draft is important. We are dedicated to identifying and documenting past cases, and speeding up the process whereby we identify and challenge new cases.

Richard Landes is on his way home from Paris as I post this. Landes has played a key role in the unraveling of Enderlin’s defenses and now that Chirac is not in power to give him the influential testimony of a serving president and if Judge Trébucq believes her eyes instead of Enderlin’s narration, the case should be decided against him. Richard’s dedication to not just correct the lie of al Durah but to learn from it and plan for the prevention of the next variation that may arise is a critical development in the battle for truly free, honest and responsible media.

In the coming months we at Second Draft will be announcing a number of key initiatives to further Richard’s work but for now I’d like to congratulate my friend and to express the hope that all of the hard work that has brought us to the point of at least a symbolic victory on al Durah, and all of the blood spilled in the name of the phony martyr might never have to happen again (or, at least be decreased) if we do our job well.

Welcome to our new visitors! Thanks to all our referrers! Here is a friendly reminder frome the Friendly Reminder Department (sub-division of the Department of Redundancy Department):
Feel free to support our work with a click on the Donation Button over there on the left hand side of the screen or with a check to:
Second Draft
P.O. Box 590591
Newton Centre, MA 02459