Al Dura, A Fitting ‘Catharsis’ for Rivera, the Palestinian-ist
CAMERA has posted another analysis in which Fox’s Geraldo Rivera cites his dubious Zionist credentials to launch an assault against Israel. Much has also been made about Rivera’s March 13, 2002 declaration that “I’m also becoming a Palestinian-ist.”
A visit to the Fox archives reveals a significant fact not realized eight years ago: Rivera attributes his self-declared transformation to the Al Dura affair. Consider the following exchange with Brit Hume:
Hume: It happens time and again. Western journalists, sympathetic to Israel and repelled by the terrorism practiced by the Palestinians, head off to cover the Middle East. After experiencing the place firsthand, especially when the fighting is intense, their views seem to change, and there emerges a certain sympathy for the Palestinians and their cause.
Fox News war correspondent, Geraldo Rivera, a longtime supporter of Israel, who is himself part Jewish, seems to have undergone just such an experience in his recent work in the region, and he joins me now live from Jerusalem. Geraldo, welcome.
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brit. I think you characterized my evolution in thought quite accurately. The catharsis for me was that video — I’m sure you remember — of the Palestinian father huddled with the child.
Later in the broadcast, after a recovery from a satellite failure, Rivera repeats:
You remember that infamous video of some months ago, that showed a Palestinian father huddled with his 7- or 8- or 9-year-old son against the wall, caught in a crossfire between the Israelis and Palestinians who, at the time, were shooting back, were throwing rocks at the soldiers. By the time that video ended, that young boy was dead and the father severely injured.
Now, I have been, as you suggest, a Zionist my entire life. I would die for Israel. But watching the suffering of the Palestinian people, the real suffering of these people, I’ve also become a Palestinian-ist, in a sense.
Much about the Al Dura story has been exposed to be far from real, with a French judge pointing to the “contradictory answers” of journalists Charles Enderlin and Talal Abu Rahma and “the inexplicable inconsistencies of the viewable images.”
The Al Dura story is as real as Rivera’s boasts of his knowledge of the region and of Benjamin Netanyahu as well as his so-called Zionist credentials. How fitting that Rivera’s “catharsis” was Al Dura.
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