The al Durah libel case

The head of the the Israel government press office, Danny Seaman, has now issued the first statement by an Israeli official that the killing of Mohammed al Durah (see here, here, here and here) was a staged event (although the Prime Minister’s office appears to have distanced itself from his remarks). Haaretz reports:

Seaman also wrote [to an Israeli law centre] that ‘Israel was accused of murdering a small child after the event by the world press and his image has been burned into the collective Arab memory as a symbol of the brutality of the Zionist state.’ Following a summary of the incident and the events that followed, Seaman wrote, ‘Here began the long path to exposing the truth and to base the facts that are known to us today, that the events of that day were essentially staged by the network’s cameraman in Gaza, Mr. Tilal Abu-Rehama.’

Natan Sharansky, the Israeli politician and former soviet dissident who knows a thing or two about black propaganda, also writes about the scandal in the Wall Street Journal. YNet, however, reports a defiant response from France2:

Charles Enderlin, the France 2 reporter who is still working in Israel, said in response to this report, ‘This is not the first time that Seaman makes such allegations against me – it is nonsense. It is pure slander. The video that we filmed is authentic and I stand behind it. We plan to show the film in court in France, and I am certain it will end the repeated mudslinging,’ the French reporter said.

So why have they not produced it for the past seven years?