Entries Tagged 'lawless in gaza' ↓

I first posted about BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in mid-March, when he was kidnapped in the streets of Gaza. I had expected his abduction to catch the attention of the MSM, since he was one of their own. Instead, except for many, prolonged protests held by Palestinian and British journalists, there has been a troubling silence. (You can follow all my posts about Johnston here. You can read a few posts about kidnapping as the terrorist tactic du jour here, here, and here.)
Until today. The group holding Johnston released a propaganda video:

He is wearing a red sweatshirt and reading out what appears to be Palestinian propaganda denouncing Israel and the Middle East policies of Britain and America. He appears calm and without any visible injuries.

His voice, familiar to many BBC listeners and viewers from his 16-year career with the corporation, is measured. He says he is “in Gaza”. …

During a three-minute speech, Mr Johnston accuses Britain and the US of causing suffering in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and for “occupying Muslim lands against the will of the people in those places”.

He starts to give a message to his family but is cut off. Subtitles then appear on the video, saying: “The BBC refused to take this message to his family”.

Naturally, the family is relieved to have this sign of life from Johnston, although no one can say when the video was shot. But this isn’t anything like relief for the family—it’s extended agony:

Norman Kember, 76, a British peace campaigner held hostage for more than four months in Baghdad in 2005, said the video was designed to cause “maximum stress” to Mr Johnston’s family and the Government.

He drew comparisons between the orange suit he was given to wear during videos and Mr Johnston’s red sweatshirt. He said: “I think the idea was to show the parallel to Guantanamo Bay and put the maximum stress on the Government and relatives.”

The British government is well aware of that:

The video was condemned by the Foreign Office for the distress it caused the family and Tony Blair used a press conference at the end of his African tour to call for the kidnappers to release Mr Johnston, who passed his 45th birthday in captivity.

Also calling for the release of Johnston is Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian “prime minister” of Chaos and In-fighting.

“We are renewing our demands of the men, the abductors of the British journalist, to protect him and not to harm his life and to immediately release the journalist,” Haniyeh said after Friday prayers in Gaza City.

“This is an action that does not serve Islam, does not serve the Palestinian cause, and does not serve those who have abducted him.”

Johnston’s kidnappers would surely disagree. It serves them just fine as a recruitment tool for the wretched, dispirited youth of Gaza, who have been failed by two successive generations of their “leaders” (and failed, too, by two successive generations of Israelis, who have been unable to collectively rise above the massive hatred and violence engendered by their reclaiming the Jews’ ancestral homeland). These young men were once ripe for the picking by Hamas. Now that Hamas has also failed them, they’re ripe for the picking of by Qaeda.

You can read all about it here in the NYT. Read it and weep.

This recent wave of abductions of Westerners in the region began with the June 2006 kidnapping by Palestinians of the Israel soldier Gilad Shalit. (At the time, I held Hamas responsible for an act of war; now we know it was this shady Army of Islam group that was responsible, and that they’re not under Hamas’s, or Fatah’s, control—which is part of the problem in Gaza) It was followed a month later by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah—they’re not Palestinians, they’re Lebanese, and this happened in a different region: in the north of Israel. Second Lebanon War followed in August.

And now I feel like I belong on the Daily Show. Still with me? Good.

Anyway: The same Palestinian group (the al Qaeda-inspired Army of Islam) that snatched the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last June snatched the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston this March.

In between, there was the abduction and release (after a forced conversion to Islam) of two Fox journalists in August 2006.

I think you get the picture: there’s chaos in Gaza—so much chaos that Hamas begins to look moderate compared to the al Qaeda-inspired nihilist thugs doing these freelance operations, from kidnapping to setting fire to Internet cafes. And the prospect of anyone on the Palestinian side following a “road map” to peace with the Israelis is brought into relief as the deeply cynical and totally ludicrous political theater it is. What negotiated agreements could hold up under chaos, and when no one group among the Palestinians has the monopoly on the use of force?

Also: remember that there have been no Western journalists in Gaza since Johnston was abducted. The Palestinian journalists operating there must be under tremendous pressure and risk in this deeply uncertain political climate. Freedom of the press is the last thing that al Qaeda-type thinking tolerates. These journalists are very brave people, but we cannot know the extent of what is happening.

Keep your eye on this situation. It’s very dangerous indeed.

And spare a thought not just for Alan Johnston but also for the American hostages being held in Iran.

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.

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.

Khalil Hamra

Palestinian journalists hold posters of kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston during a protest calling for his release in front of the parliament building in Gaza City, Tuesday, March 20, 2007. Johnston was kidnapped last week in Gaza City and no group has yet claimed responsibility.

The photo above accompanies a depressing piece about the internal strife in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah, now that Arafat-era “strongman” Mohammed Dahlan has been put in the driver’s seat to oversee security. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Even more depressing, there is nothing new to report on the Alan Johnston story.

I was glad to see that ETP’s Glynnis MacNicol picked up on the story in a long post. Too bad she got her facts wrong about “Gilead” (much, much more frequently known as Gilad) Shalit. If you’re going to go “deep in the weeds,” *** you gotta know what you’re talking about.

It was not the kidnapping of Shalit that “ostensibly launched last summer’s Israeli attack on Lebanon.” [!]

The kidnapping of Shalit (and murder of two other soldiers), on top of continual Hamas-sponsored rockets lobbed into Israel, was what sparked an Israeli offensive into Gaza (which is to the south of Israel) in June 2006.

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah, the terrorist organization dug in on its northern border, in Lebanon, started in mid-July 2006, three weeks later, after Hezbollah kidnapped two other Israeli soldiers (and killed three ) in a cross-border raid that violated Israel’s sovereignty. That was the casus belli of that conflict, which today was given its offical name: the Second Lebanon War. (I don’t much like the sound of that. Whenever they start counting wars, knowing it’s only one of a series—of indefinite length—it makes me nervous.)

————

*** I read that expression on Matt Yglesias’s blog today—twice in once post—and googled it, because I’d never heard it before. What I dug up was really interesting—with more than enough meat for another post. But who knows when I’ll ever get to that, so here’s the short version.

Googling “deep in the weeds” led me to Language Log (which I haven’t visited in waaaaaay too long)

Do six uses of a phrase in two years [May 2004 to May 2006 --ed.] count as “quintessential”? Well, I’ve observed before that a word or phrase may only need to be repeated a couple of times in order to seem characteristic of a writer or speaker, if the use in context is striking enough. In this case, five of the six TPM uses of “deep in the weeds” are used to introduce a post, as part of a ritualized warning to the reader that the content will involve a level of detail that some may find excessive.

In comparison, the phrase “deep in the weeds” has never been used on Language Log, on Language Hat, on the Volokh Conspiracy, on Crooked Timber, etc., although these blogs are more often deep in (what some might consider) the intellectual weeds than not

TPM, where Josh Marshall has used it a lot, is where Yglesias (who used to write under the TPM Cafe banner) must have picked it up.

We’re all Professor Donald Foster wannabes now. (He unmasked Joe Klein as “Anonymous,” the author of Primary Colors, the highly unflattering insiderish 1996 roman a clef about the Clintons. Foster has also gotten some wrong.)

(updated with a link, and clarified)

The fate of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza nine days ago, is still unknown. Tension is beginning to mount, though, judging by the headlines on Google News:

Hunt continues for BBC reporter
BBC News, UK - 2 hours ago
Efforts are continuing to locate the BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, who disappeared more than a week ago and is presumed to have been kidnapped. …
PJS to Launch 2 Hours Strike Protesting Johnston’s Abduction WAFA - Palestine News Agency
Britain Working Feverishly To Locate BBC Reporter In Gaza All Headline News
Government ‘using every channel’ to free newsman Scotsman
BBC News - Swissinfo
all 124 news articles »

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Palestinian kidnappers link BBC correspondent …
DEBKA file, Israel - 3 hours ago
Ten days ago, BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was seized by armed men in Gaza (March

For what it’s worth—and I think it would be a mistake to discount it entirely; see this post, where I noted that the NYT and Debka overlap somewhat in their reporting—Debka’s report is grimly sensational [e.a.]:

Our counter-terror sources disclose that Montaz Durmush, leader of the Army of Islam (Al Qaeda-Palestine), which is holding both hostages, is using the British journalist as a tool to drive up the price demanded of Israel for Shalit’s freedom. …

A team of 20 British agents, most of them from the MI6 secret service, is working in Gaza to make contact with the abductors, or just to obtain a sign of life from Johnston – so far without success. It is beginning to dawn on the group that the BBC reporter’s seizure was not just another short-lived kidnapping of a Westerner like the ones plaguing Gaza and the West Bank in recent months, but a drawn-out affair with no knowing how it will turn out. …

British and Israeli intelligence circles believe both hostages are caught up in factional rivalries in Gaza over who will dominate the Palestinian unity government. Neither Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas nor prime minister Ismail Haniyeh was in any position to deliver on their promises to work for Shalit’s early release.

As I said: no news is grim news.

Judging from the headlines on Google News as of 7 p.m., concern is mounting for BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza eight days ago and still unaccounted for.

I’m still waiting to hear from moralizing big-mouth American pundits like Nicholas Kristof about Johnston, their professional colleague—missing without a trace, and without anyone even writing about him, for eight days.

PJS to Launch 2 Hours Strike Protesting Johnston’s Abduction
WAFA - Palestine News Agency, Palestinian Territories - 11 hours ago
… a strike for two hours on Wednesday protesting the kidnapping of the of the BBC reporter, Alan Johnston, by unidentified militias in Gaza week ago. …
UK presses Abbas on BBC reporter BBC News
Palestinian journalists strike over kidnapping Swissinfo
BBC correspondent Alan Johnston is ‘OK’ Gulf News
The Herald - BBC News
all 122 news articles »

Britain ‘using every channel France24, France - 4 hours ago Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Tuesday that Britain was using every channel it can to secure the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston, …

Headlines for March 20, 2007 Democracy Now, NY - 9 hours ago In the Occupied Territories, Palestinian journalists are staging a work strike today to protest the kidnapping of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston. …

Alan Johnston on the front line BBC News, UK - Mar 17, 2007 Palestinian security services are still searching for the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston who was kidnapped on Monday by unidentified gunmen in Gaza. …

Beckett says she raised BBC abduction with Abbas Jurnalo, Germany - 6 hours ago The British government is using “every channel and opportunity” to secure the release of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston believed to have been kidnapped in …

Absolutely nothing new. Google News at 8:30 a.m.:

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston is ‘OK’
Gulf News, United Arab Emirates - 23 hours ago
Gaza City: The British Broadcasting Corporation said Monday it has received assurances that correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in the Gaza Strip a week …
Kidnapped BBC journalist’s father pleads for his release Belfast Telegraph
In Gaza, BBC correspondent still missing after a week Nieuwsbank (abonnement)
Pressure grows to free Johnston Guardian Unlimited
Gulf News - Aljazeera.net

The Palestinians get a unity government and the BBC gets word that its correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza a week ago today, is “okay.” No word on his whereabouts, though. The representatives of the Beeb are, understandably, still nervous:

Middle East Bureau Editor Simon Wilson, in the company’s first news conference since the abduction, said the BBC had no direct contact with the kidnappers, and didn’t know what the abductors’ motives were.

“We are receiving assurances that people believe he is okay,” Wilson said. “We are grateful for those assurances, but we are disappointed that we still don’t have any firm knowledge of his whereabouts seven days after he was kidnapped.

The story is inching its way into the news cycle. ETP’s Rachel Sklar and CBS’s Public Eye both pick up the story that was in today’s Guardian.

Meanwhile, here are the headlines at Google News as of 4 p.m.

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston is ‘OK’
Gulf News, United Arab Emirates - 7 hours ago
Gaza City: The British Broadcasting Corporation said Monday it has received assurances that correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in the Gaza Strip a week …
Pressure grows to free Johnston Guardian Unlimited
Johnston’s father appeals for his release Gulf News
Johnston, ‘almost a Gazan’ Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
CNN International - Ynetnews
all 86 news articles »

Gaza: BBC Reporter Now Missing a Week in Gaza
Carib Journal - 7 minutes ago
Alan Johnston, 44, was abducted at gunpoint by masked men last Monday. No ransom demand has been made and no one has claimed responsibility for the …

Gaza: Gunmen ambush UN convoy in bid to abduct agency chief
SomaliNet - 39 minutes ago
… Relief and Works Agency Gaza field office, was travelling came five days after the kidnap at gunpoint of the BBC correspondent in Gaza, Alan Johnston. …
Irish UN official escapes kidnap attempt in Gaza Unison.ie (subscription)
all 92 news articles »

Fully five days after the abduction of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in Gaza, the news of his kidnapping is seeping out, now that a more shocking attempted kidnapping in Gaza has cast the international spotlight in that direction.
Following are the headlines yielded by a search of “Alan Johnston” on Google News at 12:30 p.m.

Click on the first link and you will be taken to a chilling story, posted on the BBC’s site today, that was written by Johnston himself just over a year ago (about gangsterism [my word] among “bands of militants” [Johnston's words] in Gaza):

Alan Johnston on the front line
BBC News, UK - 4 hours ago
Palestinian security services are still searching for the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston who was kidnapped on Monday by unidentified gunmen in Gaza. …
Rally for missing BBC journalist BBC News
No Sign Of BBC Reporter, Alan Johnston Post Chronicle
No sign of BBC reporter Earthtimes.org
United Press International
all 37 news articles »

Security officials looking into possible Al-Qaida link to attack …
International Herald Tribune, France - 32 minutes ago
“We still fear for Alan’s welfare.” Johnston’s kidnapping was somewhat unusual, since most foreigners seized in Gaza are freed after a few hours.
Irish UN official escapes kidnap attempt in Gaza Unison.ie (subscription)
all 106 news articles »

The AP story published in the IHT broadcasts the fear of involvement by al Qaeda in the failed kidnapping of the UN official:

Palestinian security officials are looking into a possible al-Qaida link to the attack, said a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. The official did not provide evidence for such a suspicion, saying only that “we are looking into all possibilities.”

Palestinian officials have been worried about al-Qaida activity in the Palestinian territories ever since Ayman al-Zawahri, the No. 2 in al-Qaida, accused Hamas last week of selling out by accepting a power-sharing deal with the Fatah Party of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Brave words from UNRWA head John Ging follow:

Ging said in a telephone interview Saturday that he is concerned about the safety of U.N. workers in Gaza, but that he and his staff will not leave.

“We will not be driven out by a bunch of gunmen,” he said, adding that he has received assurances from Palestinian security officials that the attackers would be tracked down.

The word nevertheless should have preceded the following sentence in the Times story. Thus:

[Nevertheless, t]he attack on the clearly marked U.N. convoy marked a watershed, even in lawless Gaza where scores of foreigners have been kidnapped in recent months. [e.a.]

The AP mentions Johnston, but just barely:

Earlier Saturday, several dozen journalists staged a protest outside the Palestinian parliament in Gaza City, calling for the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston who was kidnapped Monday. No group has come forward with ransom demands.

Paul Greeves, a BBC staffer from London, participated in the protest. “Clearly, we are still very concerned,” he said. “We still fear for Alan’s welfare.”

The BBC itself covers Johnston’s kidnapping today. Leading with an account of a journalists’ rally (consisting of 20 protesters) held in Gaza City on Johnston’s behalf, the Beeb reports:

[BBC Mideast bureau chief] Wilson thanked the Palestinian journalists for their support for Johnston and spoke of the high regard in which they hold him.

“It is clear to us that in Gaza, Alan is regarded as a Gaza journalist foremost and a foreign journalist second.”

He again called on anyone with information that could help resolve the situation to come forward.

Reports earlier in the week said Johnston was in good health.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya are those who have called for Johnston’s return.

There has been a series of abductions of Westerners in the Gaza Strip where law and order has been a growing problem.

All were eventually released unharmed. [e.a.]

Masters of understatement, those Brits. There’s only one problem. Subtlety doesn’t work in the present era. The politics of the day are such that if you’ve got something to say, you gotta say it out loud.

So when you click on Google News without doing a search, the top story is this—a complete whitewash of reality on the ground in the gang-infested Palestinian territories, yet another mirage:

Palestinian unity government takes office
Reuters Canada - 27 minutes ago
By Nidal al-Mughrabi. GAZA (Reuters) - A Palestinian unity government rejected by Israel as a peace partner took office on Saturday, pairing Islamist Hamas and secular Fatah in a coalition they hope can end factional violence and painful foreign …
FACTBOX-What’s next for new Palestinian government Reuters AlertNet
Palestinian Legislature Ratifies Unity Government New York Times
Voice of America - Playfuls.com - Ha’aretz - Washington Post
all 1,528 news articles »

I’m sure Alan Johnston, where ever he is, is celebrating this great day for Hamas and Fatah.