The article about the petition and about those who signed it is very revealing and I strongly recommend reading every word of it:
The Weekly Standard
Being a French journalist means never having to say you're sorry.
by Anne-Elisabeth Moutet
I started reading it on Jihad Watch, but it was necessary to switch to the original to read it all.
The following excerpts are pass the point where Jihad-Watch stopped, but I think those are the most important ones:
Similarly, there was the seasoned reporter from Le Figaro who thought Charles Enderlin, quite simply, was the best reporter operating in the Near East today. "These people, the ones attacking him, they're extreme rightists, yes? You can't take anything they say seriously." I conceded that the hoax wasn't proven, but that the shots had in all likelihood come from the Palestinian side. Esther Schapira . . . There was a sniff. "Pas très sérieuse, non?"
"Well, actually," I said, Schapira had just received the 2007 Europa Prize for her documentary on the murder of Theo van Gogh and been nominated for the 2008 Banff Television Awards. There was a small noise of well-bred surprise. All the same, nothing he'd heard until now had remotely convinced him or was likely to change his mind.
Then there was someone who insisted so vehemently on not being quoted or described in any way that I won't even reveal this person's sex. "Look, this whole thing has been a nightmare for Charles. He's received hate mail, his wife has been threatened, he's about to have a nervous breakdown. You want the truth? I don't give a flying monkey about the case. I signed for Charles. In all honesty, I think he edited his film on deadline and was careless, and afterwards he didn't want to admit he'd screwed up. A one-minute film, and it snowballed from there. Don't put in anything that might identify me, I don't want him to think I don't believe 100 percent in what he says, he'd be devastated."
This, at least, was bluntly honest. Jean-Yves Camus, the political scientist and expert on radical Islam, with whom I'd worked at Proche-Orient.info, was another unrepentant signatory, one who didn't mind being quoted. "Do I think Charles Enderlin lost a good opportunity to own up to a mistake early in the day, and spare himself this anguish? Of course. You know how we work in a hurry? Guy sends him pictures from Gaza, tells him the Israelis shot the kid, he believes him-I mean, even the Israeli Defense Forces spokesman believed it! But you can't own up one, two years after the fact. It's too late, it would mean you abdicate. It's a nice job Charles has, he's nearing retirement age. I don't think he wanted to rock the boat. You know Charles, he's always been status-conscious; he likes being the France 2 man in Israel. Plus, these people behind their computers, they're not real journalists, are they? You can't come from your day job and blog at night and imagine you've become a reporter. It doesn't don't work like that. There are standards."
Still, I asked, why sign a text adamantly asserting the dangerous notion that Muhammad al-Dura had been shot by the Israelis if you don't believe it?
"I was asked to. It was to support Charles. Did you know his wife is Danielle Kriegel? Daughter of Annie Kriegel [a great anti-Communist academic, now dead], sister of Blandine [a philosopher and a former Chirac aide at the Elysée palace], sister-in-law of Alexandre Adler [Blandine's husband, who writes about geostrategy and politics in most French quality newspapers, perennial guest on highbrow talk-shows]."
The french elite jumps in - in an attempt to distort history - all to protect some other elitists job security and stance as philosophers and media celebs.
I can't believe Charles' home has not been egged yet, but now it seems there 300 more "heads-in-their-asses" who beg to have egg on theirs.
The French will someday have to hone up to their role in inciting against Jews and Israel in such a way which snowballed into numerous murders and terror attacks and could have jump started the era of Islamic terrorism we face all around the world today. Their comrade for whom they risked their name in signature is a loathsome ass hole. Sue Me! I'll never set foot in France anyways!
P.S. The families of Daniel Pearl and many other victims of terror whose murder was tied by the terrorists to Al-Dura ought to sue France 2 and Ederline for all they've got. Then we'll see who signs a petition to silence bloggers in the name of "French Honor". (oxymoron)
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