Al Jazeera's alternative history of the second intifada

Al Jazeera in English has a history on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the second intifada.

It is filled with lies.

For the year 2000:

In Gaza, a French broadcast crew captured footage of a boy called Mohammed al-Durrah being shot repeatedly by Israeli forces as he clung to his father. Moments later, a paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was killed as he attempted to treat the boy and his father.

Not only was the al-Dura story exposed as a hoax, and the the paramedic story seems to have been completely made up - no such person was seen on any of the footage. (B'Tselem claims an ambulance driver was killed en route to the al-Duras, but not while attempting to treat them.)

By the end of the year, at least 275 Palestinians had been killed and thousands had been wounded, along with 19 members of the Israeli security forces and five Israeli civilians, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Palestinian stone-throwers were met with Israeli snipers; gunmen, with helicopter gunships and tanks. What began as a popular protest movement quickly began to look like a war.

B'Tselem does list 19 Israeli security personnel killed. It also lists 22 civilians killed, not five. Most of the were civilians were shot with live ammunition, stabbed, blown up or burnt to death (not from stone throwing, as al Jazeera would have you believe.)

Al Jazeera also neglects to mention that the initial stone throwers were hurling boulders down on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall from above.

By the end of 2003, the intifada began to wane, and Israelis were moving toward a territorial withdrawal for the first time in the history of Zionism.

Um, what about the Sinai? What about Southern Lebanon? What about Area A?

From the announcement of the disengagement from Gaza in early 2004, Hamas attacks all but ceased - only one of Hamas' 38 suicide attacks occurred in 2004.

I guess thousands of rockets aimed at civilians aren't considered "attacks" by Al Jazeera.

Just something to keep in mind the next time anyone quotes Al Jazeera as if it is a credible source for information.

(h/t Zach)