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The Al-Dura Affair and Its Implications for Morality and Ethics in France

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Freddy Eytan - The report of Israel's governmental inquiry committee on the al-Dura affair, written after a thorough examination of all the materials related to this unfortunate affair, should serve as a lesson for all foreign reporters working in Israel and be taught in journalism schools throughout the world. The authors of the report have successfully demonstrated how a Palestinian photographer violated the basic tenets of journalistic work, and how a foreign reporter accepted his version of events and his photos wholesale without questioning their reliability. Verifying sources, cross-checking, meticulously ensuring objectivity - these are the foundations on which the whole enterprise of journalistic coverage rests. Of course it is regrettable that the report only appeared thirteen years after the affair, which caused grave damage to Israel's image, but there is no early or late when it comes to the truth. A democratic state that fights for its existence is required to defend itself and its image with all the tools at its disposal. Amb. Freddy Eytan, a former Israeli Foreign Ministry senior advisor who served in Israel's embassies in Paris and Brussels, was Israel's first Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
2013-05-31 00:00:00
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