Jihad Watch: "Someone like Charles simply doesn't make a story up"

Jihad Watch: "Someone like Charles simply doesn't make a story up": ""Someone like Charles simply doesn't make a story up"

Charles Enderlin is the French journalist responsible for the notorious Muhammad Al-Dura footage that ignited an orgy of mass murder by Palestinian Arab jihadists. The footage has been proven to be a hoax. But journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet finds that her journalistic colleagues are somewhat less enthusiastic about admitting a hoax when it exonerates the Israelis and the "extreme right."

"L'Affaire Enderlin: Being a French journalist means never having to say you're sorry," by Anne-Elisabeth Moutet in the Weekly Standard, July 7:

[...] Having dug in his heels in time-honored fashion, Enderlin, a seasoned journalist and a French-Israeli dual national who'd spent most of his adult life at the same job, never imagined the al-Dura story would dog him. He was covered by his superiors in the hierarchy, affording him the Zen-like serenity achievable in large French organizations, which are profoundly top-down and basically unchanged in spirit since the court of the Sun King. His coverage of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, while regularly criticized by pro-Israeli groups, was highly esteemed by his peers. He had produced a well-informed documentary series on the Oslo Accords, the peace process, and the 2000 Camp David talks, tied to a book that has been published in English; and, while it could be argued that he was perhaps too close to some of his sources (several of the parties to the peace talks actually held discussions at the France 2 bureau, loaned by a helpful Enderlin as discreet neutral ground), this was a notable achievement. Such a person could not, in the order of things, be seriously threatened by a bunch of activists or scruffy bloggers behind their computer screens questioning his professional judgment. When he dismissed accusations of a cover-up by explaining that he had chosen "not to show the full footage of the child's agony," which would have been "unbearable," he fully expected to be taken on trust."