Entries Tagged 'Alan Johnston' ↓

updated twice below 

As I predicted when Johnston was kidnapped (a story I started following when it happened and which I tracked through its many ebbs and flows when the MSM did not), Hamas has lost no time freeing him and grabbing credit for it:

The leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said Johnston's freedom showed his Islamist movement had brought order to the Gaza Strip, where it seized power in a bloody coup last month.

He said: "We have been able to close this chapter which has harmed the image of our people greatly. The efforts by Hamas have produced the freedom of Alan Johnston."

Meshaal regrets the episode:

"We had expressed our regret in the name of the Palestinian people at the abduction of the respected journalist Alan Johnston, which represented an offence to our people.

"Today we celebrate with Johnston’s family, the BBC and our people the freedom of Alan Johnston,” Mashaal said.

I eagerly await Alan Johnston's mash note to Hamas.

UPDATE 1:  That was quick. CNN just carried part of a news conference with Ismail Haniyeh and Alan Johnston. Anderson Cooper was the height of caution as he discussed the live footage with his colleage Ben Wedeman. Cautiously, Cooper reminded the audience that of course Johnston was still in the hands of Hamas and that he was in front of the camera with the "dismissed" Palestinian prime minister.

Then the camera and mic stayed on Johnston, and Cooper and Wedeman fell silent as Johnston talked about how he had feared for his life, how he thought this would go on and on, how his abductors felt quite comfortable with their situation until a few weeks ago, when Heroic Hamas took control of Gaza and provided safety and security to all its people blah blah blah.

To which CNN's Wedeman enthused that Johnston was obviously no worse for the wear, because he was talking so volubly–and Wedeman got all excited about his scoop, now "confirmed" by Johnston, that Johnston's kidnappers were somehow in league with Fatah.

And so does CNN act as the eager public relations representative of Hamas.

Is everyone comfortable with that? I'm not. Because the MSM seems to have learned nothing since Jill Carroll, swathed in full hijab, was "interviewed" by Iraqi intermediaries upon her "release" from captivity in Baghdad.

This is what I mean when I say that it's not the content of the stories that makes "hard news." A "report" on Alan Johnston's release such as the one by Ben Wedeman, which serves to smear Fatah on Johnston's say-so and on Hamas's behalf, isn't hard news. It's sensationalism. 

UPDATE 2: Here's a link to the AC 360 transcript, which isn't complete as of this writing (the show just ended). 

Even in our supersaturated plugged-in-24/7 media universe, where most stories whiz by at Feiler Faster speed, sometimes a very simple narrative can grab hold of the masses and transfix them.

Case in point: In Portugal, a little girl is abducted from her bed in the villa where her Scottish family is vacationing. She vanishes without a trace. Two weeks later, with still no word of the four-year-old’s fate, all of Britain is in thrall to this suspense story,

The FA Cup crowd fell silent as haunting images of missing Madeleine McCann were broadcast on a big screen.

Dozens of pictures of the little blonde girl, who turned four a week ago, were shown to 90,000 football fans. …

Her pretty face filled the screens at either end of the pitch - each one the size of 600 domestic TV sets - and dominated the ground.

The short two-minute video, set to the soundtrack of the Simple Minds hit Don’t You Forget About Me, was shown at both half time and before the game.

It received a round of applause from fans of the two teams which both have close ties with Portugal, where the toddler was abducted while on holiday in the seaside village of Praia da Luz.

Chelsea captain John Terry and team-mate Paulo Ferreira have recorded appeals as has Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo. [whoa! --ed.]

Um, can we talk? Don’t worry. This is not going to be a “whatever happened to that British stiff upper lip?” tirade.

For 15 days, the wide eyes and waiflike features of a child of 4 have stared out at Britons from television screens and newspaper front pages, T-shirts and posters with a simple message: find me.

That message has been relayed across Britain — on television and in cyberspace — by sports stars, celebrities and politicians, including the prime minister-designate, Gordon Brown. The outpouring has been likened, hyperbolically, to the national grief that erupted over the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. [e.a.] …

In Britain, the upwelling of grief has stirred debate about the country’s recourse to cloying sentimentality in the face of loss that has melted the characteristic stiff upper lip.

And I’m not going to lecture you about how trivial this one abducted child is compared to the other abducted people in the news that we could be concerned about—such as BBC correspondent Alan Johnston,

who turned forty-five in captivity in Gaza this past week;

or the three American soldiers seized by al Qaeda in Iraq:

Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass.

Pfc. Joseph J. Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, Calif.

Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich.

or Ingrid Betancourt,

a former Colombian presidential candidate who is being held hostage by FARC rebels and is, according to a report from a fellow hostage who escaped, chained by the neck to other prisoners, sometimes up to 24 hours a day, to prevent her attempting to escape, which apparently she is given to trying again and again.

or the seizure and jailing by Iranian authorities of the American scholar Haleh Esfandiari in the notorious Evin prison.
Nope, this is not a guilt trip about the geopolitical messages we should be listening to (although we should be listening to them, of course).

This is just a reminder of the extraordinary, magical, mystical power of stories to capture our imagination in a way that nothing else can—that is, to capture our imagination and attention in a way that influences us. That makes us stop and think. That stays with us ( or “sticks,” in Malcolm Gladwell’s parlance). That makes us change our mind, or our behavior.

I mention five abduction stories above. All of them cry out for our attention. All of them are heartbreaking and tragic. All of the victims cry out for our sympathy or our pity. One of them is different, however. Only that one cries out immediately for our empathy.

Most of us will never run for office in ultra-violent Colombia. Most of us will never serve in Iraq. Most of us will never report from war-torn Gaza. Most of us will never have to toe a precarious line between being a free American scholar and a devoted Persian daughter who goes home to totalitarian Iran twice a year to visit her 93-year-old mother.
But which of us cannot put himself or herself in the shoes of Madeleine McCann’s parents and which of us does not remember being a helpless child?

Surely there’s a lesson here for all marketers (of anything, whether product or idea). The lesson is this: nothing beats a great story (in which category I include heartbreaking, sad, horrifying, etc.). We will give you our momentary attention pretty readily if you make enough noise (for example: if you say something totally outrageous, like what Jimmy Carter said about Tony Blair the other day, we’ll notice). But if you want to get through to us, give us a story we can relate to at gut level.

Give us a story that no amount of cynicism or jadedness or ironic detachment can protect us from and we are your slaves.

While everyone in Israel is angling for position now that Olmert has gotten a 0% popularity rating and Nasrallah is singing nyeh nyeh nyeh boo boo, I’m watching Gaza to see what’s going on among Israel’s putative partners for peace.

Here’s what’s going on: al Qaeda (or someone affliated with it, or involved in al Qaeda-type thinking) is pressuring Hamas, as evidenced by a Guardian story about abducted BBC journalist Alan Johnston. Apparently Haniyeh is in negotiations with Johnston’s kidnappers [e.a.]:

 The letters from Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh have sought to “clarify to these people [the kidnappers] that this issue doesn’t serve the interest of our people, and the Muslims,” said the aide, Ahmed Youssef. …

Youssef said the kidnappers had not demanded any ransom and suggested they were a militant Muslim group.

“Money is not the issue. The issue is an incorrect understanding of Islam, how to deal with foreigners in general, an incorrect understanding of Islam among some,” he said.

Youssef declined to discuss the kidnappers’ identities or ideology. “Any discussions about it will harm this issue,” he said.

 For what it’s worth, Abbas also released a quote:

“We know where the journalist is, and we want to preserve his life and we want to save him, and this needs time,” Abbas was quoted as saying by the official Wafa news agency.

They seem to be afraid to say anything more for fear that Johnston will be killed by his kidnappers.

You’ll note that just a couple of days ago, al Qaeda was publicly provoking and goading Hamas. From a story published in the L.A. Times:

An Al Qaeda leader called on the Palestinian group Hamas to fight Israel with “bombs and fire.”

“Where is revenge, where are the bombs, where is the fire?” Abu Yahya al-Libi asked members of the military wing of Hamas in a video posted on a website used by Islamist militant groups.

Al Qaeda views Hamas as a moderate group that has compromised the rights of Palestinians for political gains.

A war of words between Hamas and al Qaeda has been going on for a while. Here’s one story from mid-March:

Hamas to al-Qaeda: Stop baseless accusations

 

Fury in Hamas after al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri ‘eulogizes’ the movement, saying it has surrendered and betrayed its principles. Hamas: ‘We will not forsake a single grain of the sand of Palestine’

Here’s another story from mid-April:

‘Al-Qaeda operating in Gaza’

 

PA security officials say global jihad group targeting Palestinian leaders, secular Muslims

Al-Qaeda is operating in the Gaza Strip and previously attempted to assassinate Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other top leaders from Abbas’ Fatah party, according to Palestinian security officials.

Can it be any more obvious that al Qaeda is operating with total impunity in Gaza, where there are currently no Western reporters?

Can it be any more obvious that al Qaeda took Johnston hostage as leverage against Hamas, which has been deemed to be not sufficiently Islamic to suit al Qaeda? that al Qaeda is now trying to hijack the Palestinian cause, for its own ends?

I last wrote about “al Qaeda-type thinking” in Gaza a few weeks ago. That phrase ran in both the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune on April 16.

No one has picked up on it since. Because they’re afraid that Johnston will be killed by his kidnappers. That’s how terrorism works: it’s extortion.

I’m sorry to be back to blogging. It was so much nicer to lose myself in the sights of downtown Manhattan for my impromptu photo project.

But no one else is writing about this—there’s a virtual news blackout—so it falls to me to document what I’ve been able to put together.

Alan Johnston—remember him? Well he’s still missing somewhere among the gangsters of Gaza. The BBC, his employer, shows remarkable retraint in its reporting today, some six weeks after Johnston’s abduction by Palestinians:

Two Palestinians in Gaza have launched a website calling for the release of missing BBC reporter Alan Johnston.

The website free-alan.com includes a brief biography of Mr Johnston and messages in Arabic and English calling on his captors to let him go
Alan Johnston, 44, has not been seen since he was seized at gunpoint on his way home in Gaza City on 12 March.

On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on a visit to Athens, insisted that Mr Johnston was alive.

“I have said he is alive and we are making efforts to get him released,” Mr Abbas said after meeting Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis.

On Friday, the media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders called on Mr Abbas to do more to secure Mr Johnston’s release.

Today, the WSJ reports more or less everything I posted about Gaza yesterday (which I painstakingly stitched together after five weeks of following this story).

 Uncertain Fate
Of Gaza Reporter
Deepens Concerns

 Fanatical Islamists of the type sowing chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be operating with increasing impunity in the Gaza Strip, heightening concern about the rising danger posed by al Qaeda-inspired groups or similar violent fringe groups in the Palestinian territories.

An unconfirmed statement on Sunday by a group saying it had killed abducted BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has added to these fears. Even if that claim turns out to be false, the kidnapping marks a low point for the already troubled Gaza Strip. Palestinian human-rights groups are documenting an increasing number of firebombings and other attacks against targets such as Internet cafes, libraries and cultural centers.

Concerns about such violence come amid an overall state of lawlessness that has prompted even the United Nations to keep nearly all of its foreign staffers out of Gaza. The convoy of a lead official for the world body was shot at last month, despite the use of clearly marked U.N. vehicles. Foreign charitable organizations working in Gaza are similarly concerned.

So I’ve been saying for quite a while now.

I’m not bragging—I’m noting the lag between the time an energetic amateur like me notices a straw in the wind (in this case the Johnston kidnapping, which I’ve been writing about for five weeks) and the time it takes for the MSM to use its megaphone to luanch the story into the news cycle.

Truth be told, despite its huge impact on journalists and on journalism—and despite its ramifications for the rest of us, who depend on journalists to report those things that we cannot see or hear for ourselves—this story may never make it into the news cycle. The WSJ doesn’t have much of a megaphone.

Much will depend on what happens to Johnston (and the kidnappers are hoping to hook us with that ongoing soap opera, to grab our attention with it, as kidnappers are wont to do [[see this June 2006 post, "kidnapping makes for good television," for a link to a study about how kidnapping is an excellent headline-grabbing narrative for terrorists who are looking to make their mark, or their point, in a shrug-it-off world.]] ).

But let’s not forget that Johnston’s kidnappers are competing with what’s  being called the ”deadliest shooting rampage in American history“. Those kidnappers don’t stand a chance. Because we’re now going to feast on this orgy for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Ynet News is reporting that the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been executed “by an al-Qaeda affilated Palestinian organization.” Ynet says the news comes from “an internet statement obtained by Ynetnews.”

In the message, the group said the British and Palestinian governments were responsible for Johnston’s killing, and vowed to release a video of the execution.

“The whole world knows of our just cause in demanding the release of our prisoners, who are waiting under the fire of the occupation,” the statement began. “Our demand was that all of those who are responsible for the journalist… release our prisoners who are being held in the prisons of the occupation,” it continued.

“The whole world made so much noise about this foreign journalist, while it took no action over our thousands of prisoners,” the declaration said.

“Our objective was to broadcast a clear message, and we were surprised by the position of the Palestinian Authority, which attempted to hide the case as much as it could and to present the case in an untruthful manner, leading us unfortunately to kill the journalist so that our message is understood,” the declaration continued.

According to the Ynet report, the BBC is aware of the internet report but has no independent confirmation.

I hope fervently that it’s not true, but I fear it is. And if so, we may have entered a new phase of the Terrorists’ War Against Us.

It’s coming up on five weeks since the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza and there is still no movement on his release. His parents made a heart-wrenching plea the other day, and the director general of the BBC went to meet personally with Abbas, who claimed that Johnston is “safe and well” but had nothing else to say.

Simon McGregor-Wood, the Jerusalem bureau chief for ABC News, writing in the Independent, has plenty to say about the situation:

The kidnapping of Alan Johnston, the BBC’s Gaza reporter, has shocked the community of foreign journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is also having a devastating impact on the coverage of the story. … But ever since Alan’s disappearance, fewer and fewer of us have dared to go.

There have been reports of armed gangs turning up at the local TV production offices in Gaza looking for more foreign journalists to kidnap. That has scared many of us. The Western consulates, including the British one, continue to issue dire warnings and discourage us from going. The danger of further abductions seems real enough.

As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s this:

Until recently, Alan’s BBC colleagues were staying in Gaza working for his release. Now they have pulled out, fearing for their own safety. In the five years I have been here, working for ABC News, the situation has never been this bad, the threat against foreign journalists so real.

And then he gets into the gruesome details—Gaza, which a few weeks ago looked like a great story for journalists because of the very dramatic conflict between the various Palestinian factions, has turned frightful:

Ever since the Israelis pulled out their settlers and soldiers in the summer of 2005, Gaza has provided the battleground for competing Palestinian factions and ideologies. It is the home of Hamas and the place in which the very character of the Palestinian national movement is being fought over. Far from becoming the model of a future Palestinian state that some optimists hoped for, it has become a lawless and chaotic place and, by definition, a compelling story.  …

The environment was certainly hazardous and several reporters were caught in crossfire, and there were some isolated cases of intimidation. But this was all in the realm of manageable risk. The kidnappings are different - Alan’s in particular.

It is thought that the group responsible for the Fox abduction may also be behind Alan’s disappearance, and may be of a different calibre. But there has been no claim of responsibility and, as far as we know, no demands made and no negotiations started to secure his release. Talk to different Palestinians and you get different theories as to why Alan is still being held. But most think his fate has become entangled in wider internal political struggles, and is no longer simply about cash, jobs for the boys or some new guns.

When seasoned war correspondents in the Middle East get scared, it’s time to stand up and listen. Gaza is completely out of control, there is no Western press there to report on it, and all the while Abbas and Olmert are encouraged to make nice.

And Frank Rich thinks he wrote about the Greatest Story Ever Sold. Yeah, right. That’s because he only focuses on homefront political theater.

It’s been a while since I last wrote about BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in Gaza well over three weeks ago and hasn’t been heard from since. (Regular readers will recall that I started following the story of his abduction shortly after it began. See this category for the previous posts.)

Since early this week, when Palestinian journalists began a three-day strike—which means they stopped covering their own political leaders (including Nancy Pelosi’s meeting with PA president Abbas), and also that they have held loud demonstrations against the ineptitude and cowardice of their own leaders)—coverage has picked up considerably.

Here are the latest headlines from Google News:

IPI Calls for Releasing BBC Journalist Alan Johnston
WAFA - Palestine News Agency, Palestinian Territories - 18 hours ago
VIENNA, April 04, 2007, (WAFA)-The International Press Institute (IPI), expressed its grave concern about the fate of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston and …
Palestinian journalists on three-day strike for release of BBC … IFEX
Petitions for release of kidnapped BBC Gaza journalist Indiantelevision.com
BBC users urge reporter’s release BBC News
UNESCO (Communiqués de presse) - Arutz Sheva
all 259 news articles »

Palestinian and International Organizations Call for Releasing BBC …
Al-Jazeerah.info, GA - 1 hour ago
The Palestinian people displayed their solidarity with the abducted journalist Alan Johnston in a series of activities and protests refusing such practices …

Hopeless in Gaza
Guardian Unlimited, UK - 9 hours ago
Israel must reach a compromise that will ensure a peaceful future and the wellbeing of Israelis, Palestinians and dear friends such as Alan Johnston. …
Is Gaza the new Somalia? National Post
Olmert offer for Arab talks draws skeptical response Turkish Daily News (subscription)
Problems in Gaza are pushing Palestinian nationalism toward … National Post
all 21 news articles »

Colleagues Protest Journalist’s Kidnapping
CBS News, NY - Apr 3, 2007
International and local journalists stepped up efforts Monday to win the release of Alan Johnston, a BBC reporter who was kidnapped from his car at gunpoint …
ARAB MEDIA WATCH, BBC National Review Online Blogs
all 2 news articles »

Johnston’s kidnapping—not only unsolved but mostly unaddressed by Palestinian leaders—has sparked an unprecedented number of complaints from Palestinians and their most vocal sympathizers, who normally keep such opinions to themselves. For example:

“What has come to pass in Gaza is embarrassing and shameful,” said Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and a widely respected author of books on Palestinian history.

“You may be seeing the collapse of the Palestinian national movement. It might take us back an entire generation,” he said in an interview.

“There has been a failure of leadership and it is time that Palestinian leaders looked at their own weaknesses instead of blaming everything on Zionism, imperialism and other outside forces.”

Mr. Khalidi’s bleak assessment is gaining currency in Gaza and the West Bank as well as the far-flung Palestinian diaspora.

In his airy office in Gaza, Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, said in a recent interview that “officials with the mindset of a banana republic are causing tremendous damage to the Palestinian cause.”

In an angry essay in the Palestine Chronicle, an online publication, author Ramzy Baroud complained the Palestinian leadership was permeated by ideological exclusivism, cronyism and corruption and therefore “as ineffective as ever before.”

Hani Habib, a political analyst in Gaza, said Palestinians had begun to doubt their ability to achieve statehood and “completely lost faith and trust in their leaders.”

Meanwhile, of course, there are also three Israeli hostages still being held—one by the Palestinians and two by Hezbollah: Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev.

I started this series of posts in order to follow the fate of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped in Gaza two weeks ago today. There  is nothing new to report. Google News offers this bloc of headlines today:

Two weeks since BBC man missing
BBC News, UK - 2 hours ago
Events are planned in London and Gaza to mark two weeks since BBC reporter Alan Johnston went missing in Gaza. The BBC is planning a satellite linkup …
Gaza rally for BBC reporter News24
Palestinian Journalists Protest as BBC Reporter Remains Hostage in … International Middle East Media Center
Gaza journalists on strike for BBC reporter PRESS TV
Guardian Unlimited - BBC News
all 16 news articles »

There is nothing new to report on this story. Johnston’s kidnapping has been completely overshadowed by a much bigger hostage-taking that affects Britain: Iran’s kidnapping of 15 of its sailors and marines.

The Scotsman reports the response of Britain’s prime minister to this latest outrage: Iran’s actions are “unjustified and wrong.”

The Prime Minister’s forthright comments - his first public statement on the incident - were in stark contrast to the earlier moderate tone coming from British diplomats, anxious not to antagonise the volatile protagonists in Tehran.

If this is the extent of Blair’s “forthright comments,” I think it is only logical to conclude that the West has been enmeshed in the monkeys’ chess game. (No, I am not saying that Iranians are  monkeys or that Muslims are monkeys. I am alluding to this quote from the New York Times, which I also posted in December: [e.a.]

Azar Nafisi, the author of ”Reading Lolita in Tehran,” quoted a former colleague in Tehran who compared dealing with the Islamic Republic to playing chess with a monkey. ”In the middle of the game, the monkey picks up your queen and swallows it,” she said. ”Then what are you going to do? You are dealing with a country that is not going to follow your rules.”

In today’s New York Sun, Benny Avni details Iran’s history of using terror as a tool of diplomacy:

In 2004, Iran similarly kidnapped eight British seamen, only to release them quietly after three days. The equipment seized was proudly displayed by Iran and used for bragging rights. A documentary film on the 2004 kidnapping is frequently screened to Revolutionary Guards as an educational and motivational tool.

Mr. Mottaki yesterday described at length the perceived injustice dealt to Iran by the Security Council during the eight-year 1980s Iran-Iraq War. In Lebanon at that time, Iranian proxies kidnapped anyone Western enough to negotiate over. Deals were then made for the release of hostages in return for Western supplies of weapons to Iran.

That pattern is still in use today. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah famously kidnapped Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev last summer, launching a war with Israel. Rather than negotiating, Hezbollah so far has demanded a huge price in return for any sign that the two soldiers are alive. While Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Syrian-backed terrorists in Gaza, is known to be alive, his fate too is being used as a cruel bargaining chip in Palestinian Arab “peace process” diplomacy.

The resolution passed by the Security Council on Saturday may lead to further internal questioning in Iran of the wisdom of the path taken by Mr. Mottaki’s regime – which may explain why he resorted to the language of veiled threats against London. For Iran, terrorism has always served as a diplomatic tool.

To sharpen that tool, Hezbollah was created in the 1980s by Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese-born Mr. Mugniyah. Now Mr. Mugniyah and his handlers in Iran are wanted by Interpol and Argentina.

Will Tehran turn them over?

Evidently not. What the West will do about this remains to be seen.

Of course, everything happening in the Middle East (as seen through photo ops and statements released to the press) is a mirage, as Youssef Ibrahim notes (also in the Sun, which is a must-read for those who follow international events).

There is a new American plan and great hope for peace among Arabs and Jews. I have read all about it and heard it on TV all day yesterday. …

The platitudes of this new search are so many, so old, and so repetitive. Go back and check the late 1970s or the heyday of the Oslo accord fever of 1993, and you will encounter the same stuff: last chance, critical moment, now or never, the area is ready, etc.

Here is what is not new. The Arab Quartet is about as useless and toothless as the Arab League itself, none of whose members are prepared to recognize Israel’s right to exist unconditionally. The Israelis are not about to pull out of the West Bank or the Golan Heights of Syria unconditionally, if at all.

Hamas and the other Islamic Palestinian Arab fanatics will continue to lob rockets into Israel. Hezbollah is preparing for the next round in Lebanon of fighting Israelis and Lebanese. The Palestinians will remain at each other throats in Gaza and the West Bank, regardless. Saudi Arabia is scared silly about Iran and the sectarian wars between Shiites and Sunnis on its borders, which is just about the only thing that matters in Riyadh. Egypt is steadily descending into a failed state where the succession to the post of 78-year-old dictator Hosni Mubarak promises to be messy. Jordan has virtually no role to play anywhere and no weight to speak of ever since it lost its West Bank to Israel. And the United Arab Emirates has never had any weight to begin with.

The most startling non-news is that new magical American solution. One newspaper writer asserted Sunday that Secretary Rice ‘’has opened the door to the possibility” she might offer her “own proposals to bridge the divide.” Wow. We can hardly wait.

Indeed.

Also: I will no longer be “following the abduction story.” Sadly, there is no story. There is only the abyss.

Nothing new.

Not only that, but despite the fact that she says Johnston’s kidnapping is “the last straw,” there’s a tone of resignation about all of it—the lawlessness in Gaza and the kidnappings and the factional strife—in this piece (”A Hostage to Misfortune“) by Johnston’s journalist colleague Laila El-Haddad:

This isn’t the first time they’ve tried to come for him, of course, but the first time they’ve been successful. As a precaution, his office removed the “BBC” sign by their multi-lock door in Gaza.

In better times, we used to joke about the day he would finally get kidnapped: what kind of biscuits his captors would serve him, and how he would take his tea - a reference to the experiences of former captives, conversations that seem ominous and not-so-funny in hindsight.

I say “finally” because catch-and-release kidnappings have become so frequent in Gaza in recent years as to become banal. The pattern is predictable: a foreign aid worker or journalist (or someone mistaken for a foreigner) is abducted; certain, often juvenile, demands are made, and the captive is released unharmed - though shaken up - a few days (and often hours, later). Alan’s abduction is only unusual in its length. Aside from Gilad Shalit, the longest incident of captivity in Gaza was that of two Fox News reporters, held for nearly two weeks.

According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Human Rights Centre, 28 kidnappings, with a total of 55 foreigners including journalists and international workers, have taken place in Gaza over the past three years, every hostage being released unharmed.

Over the same period, nobody has ever claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.

That seems to be true. At the same time, El-Haddad claims that everyone knows who the kidnappers are and that nobody does anything about it.

The last thing Gazans want to do is to drive away the few remaining foreigners - often aid workers - from the lonely open-air prison they call home. Or to further tarnish their image abroad, they say.

But their more immediate concern is their feeling that the Palestinian government and accompanying security forces have been too soft on kidnappers. More often than not, they argue, the security apparatus must know the location and identity of the captors, but instead of tracking them down, they fumble with security procedures and protocol, clan feuds and threats of revenge, and in the end, opt to negotiate and give in to some of their demands in return for the safe release of the hostages. These demands usually come in the form of pay raises, job promotions, or simply employment.

Now, of course, this little story of one journalist trying to do good in Gaza and kidnapped for his pains has been overshadowed.

The latest story is of 15 British sailors and marines who were abducted at gunpoint by Iranian military personnel. Daily Pundit says we will do nothing about it:

That is an act of war. And what will we do about it? Nothing. They could hang these men on live TV (let’s hope they don’t) and still we would do little except bluster ineffectually.

The Iranians are feeling their oats, and with good reason. The extent to which they are supporting the Shia terrorists in Iraq, and fomenting unrest generally, should by now have had very serious consequences for them.

You can call it a “war on terrorism”  or the “terrorists’ war on us” (the Giuliani formulation). You can claim that America (and the West) can and should fight these pesky problems as if they were criminal matters. I don’t care one way or the other.

The thing is, though, this behavior has to be stopped. The world’s bad actors must be labeled as bad actors, and they must be stopped. And punished. Their bad actions need to have consequences. Or they will be followed by worse actions. And actions even worse than those.