The Mohammed al-Dura Affair: A Little Boy and a Big Controversy - by Raymond M. Berger

When civilian deaths result from military action it is important to investigate the circumstances, if for no other reason than to help military officials avoid unnecessary civilian casualties in the future. But this motivation does not apply to an unscrupulous enemy that deliberately causes civilian deaths on both sides of the conflict in order to score propaganda points. If little Mohammed was indeed killed, he is yet another victim of the Arab war to kill and expel the Jews from the Middle East.

Raymond M. Berger..
Real Bullet Points/ TOI Blog..
30 September '19..

According to news reports at the time, on September 30, 2000, 12 year old Mohammed al-Dura, from the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza strip, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.

Since that day there has been a maze of contradictory news reports, investigations, forensic analyses and legal proceedings. Various investigators and others have questioned whether Mohammed was shot at all and whether Palestinians staged the incident. To this day no one knows for sure.

The al-Dura incident is now a small part of a long history of Arab-Jewish conflict. Revisiting the incident and its aftermath is not an academic exercise. Rather, it carries lessons about a conflict between two peoples, the wages of armed attacks by those who care little about human life, and the use of propaganda to perpetuate blame and hate.

The Story Takes on a Life of Its Own


What is certain is that Muslims across the world used images of a dead Mohammed al-Dura to incite against Israel.

A photo of little Mohammed crouching behind his father became an iconic image of war, much like the famous photo of the Jewish boy in the Warsaw ghetto, with hands raised over his head, or the Vietnamese girl on fire after being doused with napalm.

Across the Muslim world, the photo of Mohammed was printed in newspapers. Video of the incident was played and re-played on television broadcasts. Arab governments named parks and streets in Mohammed’s honor.

When al-Qaeda murdered the Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, they broadcast a video of the killing that showed an image of Mohammed al-Dura in the background. After the September 11 attacks against the US, Osama bin Laden mentioned the al-Dura incident in a warning to President George Bush. Arab countries issued postage stamps bearing images of a terrified Mohammed cowering behind his father, as son and father take cover. Commentators argued that these images were behind the 2000 lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah. After French News Channel 2 broadcast video purporting to show that Israeli soldiers had killed Mohammed, anti-Semitism in France increased.

The Intifada as Background

In order to understand the Mohammed al-Dura incident, it is vital to know that it happened in the context of a Palestinian war against Israel.

The day before the shooting, the Palestinians’ Second Intifada against Israel began.

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