I promised earlier that I would follow this story. Here’s how the abduction of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston is being reported at the moment.
from the Telegraph:
BBC man ’seized by criminals, not terrorists’
By Tim Butcher in Gaza City
Last Updated: 6:16pm GMT 13/03/2007
The BBC journalistkidnapped in Gaza is in the hands of a local criminal gang rather than jihadist extremists and is alive and well, senior Palestinian security sources in Gaza City said today.
Indirect contact has been made with the kidnappers of 44-year-old Alan Johnston although no details have yet emerged about any demands made to secure his release.
The fact the kidnappers appear criminal will come as a relief to executives at the BBC who have been working non-stop to secure his release since he first disappeared on Monday afternoon.
Jihadist terror groups like those responsible for the torture and execution of foreign hostages in Iraq have not yet been seen in the Gaza Strip.
Today Simon Wilson, BBC Middle East Bureau Chief, arrived in Gaza City for a meeting with Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, to discuss the case and maintain public attention Mr Johnston’s plight.
Note that the Palestinian “prime minister” is the go-to guy when one of yours is “kidnapped” by criminals who are under his protection.
Regarding Viacom’s pending lawsuit against Google and YouTube, Jeff Jarvis writes the quote of the day:
I guess when Viacom and CBS split up, CBS got the IQ.
Here’s what he means:
At last week’s Online Publishers Association, Betsy Morgan of CBSNews.com, said that when an infringing clip goes up on YouTube, they take it down and then replace it with a noninfringing, official copy, which has the added benefit of enabling the conversation to cluster around one rather than many copies of the same event. That’s smart.
Yep.
The other day, casting a harsh judgment, I wrote in response to Jimmy Carter’s American Jihad to Create More Sympathy for the Palestinians:
When the Palestinians become more sympathetic—i.e., when they are seen to behave in a manner that befits sympathy rather than disgust, indignation, or outrage—they will garner more sympathy from Americans.
What I meant was this: The Palestinians have been in the news (sorta) again. No, I’m not referring to the long piece by Steven Erlanger (”Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinians“) in the yesterday New York Times, which certainly elicited my sympathy.
What I’m referring to is this story, first reported on Monday:
BBC journalist feared kidnapped in Gaza
which is just now (more than 24 hours since it happened) starting to get play, according to Google News.
BBC journalist kidnapped in Gaza
Israel Insider, Israel - 15 minutes ago
Palestinian Authority security officials were able to quickly identify the victim as Alan Johnston because the latter had thrown a business card on the … |
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This story is probably what most Americans will hear about the Palestinians today, if they hear anything at all (while they’re driving home or while they’re fixing dinner for the kids or wherever they tune in to the “news”… if they do tune in to the “news” … and, of course, if “the news” even bothers to cover the story rather than cover it up—or cover up for the Hamas shitballs, who will try to paint themselves as heroes when miraculously recover Johnston, as they did when they miraculously recovered Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig in August, after the two Fox journalists had been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam on videotape. Which is certainly a topic for another post.).
But back to the point: It’s horribly unfair to those Palestinians who are indeed suffering because of Israel’s policies (and because of Israelis’ seeming indifference to this suffering—emphasis on “seeming“), but reports of the following do not create sympathy for “the Palestinians” (in quotes because it’s unfair to the suffering Palestinians to be lumped in with the Palestinians who create the suffering):
kidnappings,
bombs lobbed into Israel,
suicide killings,
shootings,
gang warfare,
terrifying violence,
corruption,
upheaval,
kidnappings that end only after the victims have converted to Islam, on pain of death,
hard-line threats emanating from Hamas leaders with broken-record regularity (”We will never recognize Israel“).
What’s to sympathize with here? Where are the people we should sympathize with? I don’t see them here, for example, in the kind of image that Palestinians proudly broadcast to the rest of the world:
Nevertheless, there are suffering Palestinians. There are things the Israelis can do to ameliorate some of their suffering—particularly the suffering they themselves cause. And there should be forward movement between the Israelis and the Palestinians to secure an agreement under which they can live side by side in relative harmony. Which is why brave journalists like Alan Johnston continue to report from places like Gaza despite the many dangers.
He was one the few remaining ones, reports the Guardian:
Mr Johnston, the BBC’s Gaza correspondent, was one of the few foreign journalists who continued to work there despite the fear of kidnapping. Mr Johnston divided his time between Gaza and Jerusalem and had only arrived in Gaza this morning. Most journalists would contact Mr Johnston before travelling to Gaza to ask his advice on the level of risk and what precautions to take.
So: there are two strands to this story that we should follow—
1) how the Western media reports Johnston’s kidnapping;
2) whether the Palestinians elicit sympathy *** from this episode, which has put them in the headlines.
And here’s what anyone with a cause should think about: what kind of image s/he wants to project to the outside world. Because it matters a lot in a world influenced by images.
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*** Though I gotta say: we are living in a remarkably unsympathetic time. I see an incredible lack of sympathy—and, even more important, a horrifying lack of empathy—in our contemporary life. That doesn’t bode well for the world’s many victims.
