Israeli Government Press Office director Daniel Seaman has issued a statement declaring the al Durah incident to have been staged, the first such official Israeli government pronouncement.

In the al Durah incident and its aftermath, so far only Charles Enderlin and France2 have been litigious; they’ve sued private individuals who have criticized them (for my coverage of these events, please see the posts listed on the right sidebar under the category “Paris and France2 trial”).

But now Pajamas Media correspondent Nidra Poller reports that Shurat HaDin, the activist Israeli law center, is planning a lawsuit of its own: against Charles Enderlin, for damages resulting from the al Durah blood libel. And until the videotapes are released, they want the Press Office to cancel France2’s credentials to work in Israel.

This promises to be very interesting.

If Enderlin had refrained from trying to defend his august reputation by suing Karsenty and the others, would any of this have happened? Perhaps he wishes he’d let sleeping dogs lie, so that lying reporters could sleep. But perhaps in the same way that David Irving’s swollen ego drove him to sue Deborah Lipstadt for libel and the ensuing trial ended up vindicating her and exposing Irving’s own mendacity, so Enderlin may ultimately regret his own attempt to clear his name through a defamation suit.

And if he were smart, Dan Rather ought to be reconsidering his own lawsuit right about now.