Late Better Than Never

It's about time that the Israeli government finally came out and declared that the infamous video clip that French media outlet Channel 2 claimed to show Israeli troops killing a Palestinian child, Mohammed al-Dura, was a fraud. The unedited tape shows that the entire incident was staged and that there was no way that Israeli troops could have killed al-Dura, who is seen crying and hiding behind his father before being killed.

Israeli forces could never had killed al-Dura because there was no way that they could have had a direct shot at him. It was nothing but a myth.

"The creation of the myth of Muhammad al-Dura has caused great damage to the State of Israel. This is an explicit blood libel against the state. And just as blood libels in the old days have led to pogroms, this one has also caused damage and dozens of dead," said Government Press Office director Daniel Seaman.

The arguments were based on investigations that showed that the angles of the IDF troops' fire could not have hit the child or his father, that part of the filmed material, mainly the moment of the boy's alleged death, is missing, and the fact that the cameraman can be heard saying the boy is dead while the boy is still seen moving.

The Israeli government chose not to fight the video. That went on for seven years.

Seven years of propaganda that was used against Israel.

Finally, the Israeli government began to take more interest in the video.

During the past seven years, Israel has preferred not to confront the most popular television station in France, but following repeated requests by Shurat HaDin, Israel Law Center, the first official document from the Prime Minister's Office, signed by the GPO director, was issued last week.

The document argued that based on investigations that were carried out, the boy's death was staged by the French network's cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma.

In a letter to Shurat HaDin, Seaman wrote, "It turns out that the events could not have occurred as they were described by the network's reporter Charles Enderlin, since they contradict the laws of physics… Furthermore, it was not even possible to hit them (the boy and his father) in the place they were hiding according to the report."

Even knowing all this, the Israelis have chosen not to prosecute those involved or even revoke the press credentials for the network.

Critics of the video, and supporters of Israel have long argued that the tape was bogus and yet the Israeli government never fully got behind efforts to debunk it. In the years that followed the incident, the Palestinians and anti-Israeli types around the world used that video agitprop as a sledgehammer against Israel's legitimacy, arguing that it showed just how evil the Israelis were - that they would kill Palestinian children.