The victims of incitement

On September 30, 2000, at the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a France 2 reporter filmed an exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian "police" at Netzarim Junction. The film focused on Jamal al-Dura and his son Muhammad seeking a place to hid from the gunfire. The reporter announced that the child, Muhammad, was dead, which was the genesis of a propaganda campaign that only years later was proven utterly false.

Irresponsible IDF officers accepted "responsibility" for the "death" of the child without verifying anything. But the research that the late weapons analyst and engineer Yosef Duriel initiated and conducted proved that the only bullets that could have hit the father and his child were the ones fired from the Palestinian position.

During the libel trial in France, the court ordered the television station in September 2007 to hand over the unedited footage. The full video shows Muhammad al-Dura lifting his hand and leg and moving after the station's reporter announced that he had died, and there was no trace of blood on his clothes. A French forensics expert submitted an opinion to the court saying that there was no ballistic possibility that the child had been killed by IDF gunfire, that there was no conclusive proof that he had been wounded or killed at all, and that the entire scene had likely been staged.

In September 2012, a committee headed by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon was established to probe reports about the Muhammad al-Dura case. The committee finished its work in 2013, under then-Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz. The committee report determined that at the end of the film broadcast on French television, the child appeared to be alive. In May 2013, the report was delivered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said, "It's important to move forward in this case. Israel was libeled, and this is an example of the delegitimization we experience all the time. There is only one way to fight lies, and that's with the truth."

Steinitz added, "[The film] was a blood libel against Israel, on top of other blood libels like [the story about] Jenin."

But no step was taken to stop the Palestinian lie machine from causing Israel harm, and even what Netanyahu proposed didn't help prevent what we are experiencing today.

Yosef Duriel submitted both verbal and written recommendations to the various prime ministers starting in 2000 that the law of the land be changed to make spreading blood libel against Israel punishable to the same extent as treason.

Blood libels can incite the masses (especially in the Middle East) to commit acts of terrorism like the ones we're witnessing today and like the ones that sparked the Second Intifada in 2000. This is in addition to the diplomatic harm they cause by strengthening attempts to delegitimize Israel in the world. The recommendations were pointedly ignored by the prime ministers.

It's time to dust them off, because they were right about the danger inherent in false hostile propaganda. Blood libel should be seen as a weapon used by jihadist who have launched a war to wipe us out, and treated accordingly.

To conclude, a word about the attempts in the Israeli media to defend Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Every day, the Palestinian Media Watch organization collects articles from the Palestinian media. The PMW site shows that throughout Abbas' time in power, as well as that of his predecessor, not a day has gone by without them inciting against the State of Israel and its Jewish citizens. This is obviously a blatant violation of the Oslo Accords, so they should be given an ultimatum given that the results of their work over the years can be seen in our streets today: If they don't stop immediately, the Oslo Accords will be cancelled and the situation will revert to what it was before they were signed.

Reverting to pre-Oslo conditions means that the flow of funds they dip their hands into (including but not limited to Abbas' sons), and also that they and anyone else who entered the country as a result of the accord will have to leave, having exploited the privilege.

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