John McCain had the great good fortune to fall into the hands of a NYT worm. The worm got his: David Shipley managed to give more publicity to McCain’s op-ed by refusing to publish it than it ever would have gotten in the paper itself.

Here it is (via CNN):

Here is the op-ed piece written by Sen. John McCain that the New York Times declined to run. The piece was released to CNN by the McCain campaign:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City?actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military’s readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war?only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

Nibras Kazimi examines the implications of our failing to claim victory in Iraq:

Senator Obama has some explaining to do: what does he mean by saying that he would end the war in Iraq? Whereas some aspects of the war seem to indicate that America is at war with itself as the Iraq debate rages in a charged partisan atmosphere, yet it is often the case that wars usually involve more than one side. So who is America at war with in Iraq? And is the enemy willing to end the war, and under what conditions?

Then there is another existential conundrum that Mr. Obama needs to contend with: how does one go about ending a war that, for all intents and purposes, is already over.

I hear my readers screaming: Whaddaya mean the war is over? Let Kazimi explain [e.a.]:

[The jihadists] thought they were building an empire in Iraq, the caliphate that Mr. bin Laden was always harping on about but never got the nerve to attempt. It was to be the realization of their dream, the same vision for which they launched the September 11, 2001, attacks and the mayhem and bloodshed in Iraq.

And now that they have been defeated in Iraq — anyone saying otherwise is either clueless or being purposely mendacious — America has in fact achieved something far greater than a military victory: America’s soldiers have smashed the nascent state of the caliphate; the dream is no more. This is a fate far worse than death for the jihadists, who enthusiastically embrace dying for their cause of resurrecting an Islamic empire as a noble act of martyrdom. Should Mr. bin Laden be killed or captured, then he would remain an undiminished hero in their eyes; while Americans may think that this would count as victory, the jihadists may simply shrug it off. However, seeing their state collapse in Iraq is their own nadir of demoralization and ideological defeat.

Kazimi also explains the ramifications of failing to declare defeat of the enemy [e.a.]:

The enemy has been defeated before it and its aims have been defined; now that’s quite an auspicious outcome. But it is also a dangerous one, since important lessons need to be learned before the enemy regroups and reengages on newer fronts.

The new fronts will be in Europe, Kazimi says. How does he know? Well, he reads the enemy’s writings. What a concept!

Read the whole thing.

And remember that the brilliant and persistent professor-blogger Engram has reached the same conclusion (via different means)—that the enemy [al Qaeda] has been defeated in Iraq.

Not that we’ll have an easy time convincing the American people of this basic fact—that we have achieved victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq (because, as the NYT notes today, America has turned inward, a fact reflected in the change in foreign news coverage in just the last three years [e.a.]:

Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study. …

Sixty-four percent of the newspapers reported cutting the space given to foreign news over three years, making that the area that has suffered at the most papers as the business contracts. Only 10 percent of the editors said they considered foreign news “very essential” to their papers.

Really? Because we Americans are so special that we don’t need to know what’s happening elsewhere … Right?

Well maybe we’ll get “lucky” and the next really bad thing will happen far away, in Europe.

What? You’ve never heard of Europe?

Well, it’s the place that the Obama Messiah visited back in July 2008.

Remember?

Nearly six years after a grotesque, disgraceful lapse of judgment that fanned the flames of hostility, resentment, and hatred between the enemies of Israel and the Jewish State, the editor of the Guardian apologizes for having compared Israelis to Osama bin Laden:

Following Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, the Guardian’s editorial commented in its April 17 edition that: “Israel’s actions in Jenin were every bit as repellent as Osama Bin Laden’s attack on New York on September 11.”

“I take full responsibility for the misjudgment,” Rusbridger said.

And during a response to a later question, he apologized for the editorial on Jenin - unprompted.

It’s too late, dude. Want proof? Your paper today is just as irresponsible and uncaring and disrespectful of anything having to do with Israel as it was six years ago, and it fuels the “cycle of violence”:

Rusbridger was also taken to task by Landau over his publication’s explanation of the word “shoah” in an edition last week, in reference to Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i’s comments that the Palestinians would be “bringing a greater shoah because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in air strikes or on the ground.”

Landau said that he could not accept that the Guardian would choose to use a headline with the word “Holocaust.”

“I can’t accept that the correspondent or sub-editor, or whoever was involved in the story, seriously thought that they could justify the use of the word Holocaust, with uppercase ‘H,’ in the headline attributed to the Israeli minister, and that with all sincerity and with no disingenuousness reflecting it as honestly meaning what the man said,” Landau said.

There is a mind-set among the biens-pensants of the West which assumes the Israelis and their Middle Eastern enemies are just two sides of the same coin: both capable of great evil, both out for an eye for an eye, one of them no better than the other.

This despite the alarmingly obvious fact that the Israelis have never carried out a deliberate, intentional massacre of innocents.

And yet when it came to Jenin, the biens-pensants believed that they did. Just on the say-so of one unreliable Palestinian spokesman.

One is forced to conclude that the biens-pensants want to believe the worst about Israel.

Why?

from the New York Times:

Bomb in Syria Kills Militant Sought as Terrorist

A militant sought as a terrorist?

The Times (London) declares that Hamas just had the biggest propaganda coup in its history:

As tens of thousands of Palestinians clambered back and forth between the Gaza strip and Egypt today, details emerged of the audacious operation that brought down a hated border wall and handed the Islamist group Hamas what might be its greatest propaganda coup.

Hamas, which took control of the coastal territory last June after a stand-off with Fatah, has denied that its men set off the explosions that brought down as much as two-thirds of the 12-km wall in the early hours.

I agree that Hamas’s exploits and the rushing of the crossing into Egypt of an estimated 350,000 Palestinians doesn’t make for a pretty picture for the Israelis. But it’s only propaganda if it has an effect on the desired party. And we all know that the American media—presumably, those are the folks that Hamas wants to impress—are obsessed with only one thing: the campaign for the American presidency. We know this because they barely bothered to cover Bush’s Middle East trip.

Nevertheless, Newsweek and Time also both declare this a PR victory for Hamas, and seem to be pulling for Hamas over both Israel and the United States to boot.

Meanwhile, the MSM barely pauses its campaign coverage—except when they’re descending ghoulishly on the body of a strapping 28-year-old actor, who died in SoHo yesterday, as ETP’s Rachel Sklar reports [e.a.]:

Cable news, too, reported on Ledger’s death — though only Fox covered it in the 5pm hour (MSNBC stuck with “Hardball” and CNN with “The Situation Room,” both of which seemed to stick with the Hillary/Obama spat and Thompson non-candidacy). We’ll see how those ratings stack up (indicator: The Ledger story was last night’s most-viewed clip on MSNBC, and #3 on CBS). …

The New York Times also covered Ledger’s death yesterday via its “City Room” blog; today’s comprehensive article by James Barron had no less than fourteen people listed as contributing reporters. …

The three nightly newscasts all ran segments covering Ledger’s death, with varying degrees of sensationalism: ABC teased it at the top of the broadcast with “First word is it could be drug related” and CBS’ website described the situation as “what authorities suspect is a drug-related death”; NBC stayed away from the cause of death in the tease and written description, and Ann Thompson noted that “police are looking at the possibility of an overdose,” noting the presence of bottles of “prescription drugs [and] non-prescription drugs.”

Though the day started out with the fed rate cut, Dem debate and Oscar nominations, the day’s big story was about Ledger’s death — and traditional media outlets could only run to catch up with the internet, particularly TMZ which, as usual, posted anything and everything in order to completely flood the zone. (Though I noticed the TMZ guy on with Greta Van Sustern didn’t correct her when she said TMZ had broken the story; from the looks of it, that one goes to Radar.) Not like we need any more indicators that the nature of the news cycle has changed, but this is once again evidence that the internet has muscled out the traditional media in covering — and driving coverage of — high-profile stories like this. For good or ill.

It’s definitely for ill, Rachel, if it excludes coverage of, you know, the news we actually need to know. But so it goes …

LGF’s Charles Johnson writes the headline of the year  [e.a.]:

Taliban Commits Mass Murder, AP Publishes Their Press Release

I suspect the AP must have rewritten the story since he provided the link, because the version he posted starts like this [e.a.]:

KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants with suicide vests, grenades and AK-47 rifles attacked Kabul’s most popular luxury hotel Monday evening, killing at least two people in a coordinated assault rarely seen in the Afghan capital, witnesses and a Taliban spokesman …told the AP.

The version of the story that’s up at the link starts like this:

KABUL, Afghanistan - Militants stormed Kabul’s most popular luxury hotel Monday, killing at least six people as they hunted down Westerners who cowered in a gym — a coordinated assault that could signal a new era of brazen Taliban attacks.

And the story is told from the p.o.v. of the victims and survivors this time. The “militant” perpetrators’ “spokesman” is still quoted, though.

Kudos to Charles Johnson for going where the MSM won’t go: on the attack against enemy propaganda.

The Flack passes along the news (from Newsweek) that al Qaeda’s main spokesman, Zawahiri, feeling burned by the media, is trying another tack—he’s now making himself available for long-distance interviews by journalists, via email questions submitted to al Qaeda’s media arm, As-Sahaab (The Cloud).

Newsweek rightly labels this a publicity tactic, and it’s a shrewd one, because it garners al Qaeda a different kind of global media attention from what they’re used to [e.a.]:

This is the first time Al Qaeda has made a formal call to journalists, although it will not be the first time the radical Islamic group has granted interviews to Western media. Counterterrorism experts believe that the posting is genuine and that it is part of Al Qaeda’s evolving tactics to use the Web as part of its propaganda arsenal. “This is a continuation of the efforts by Al Qaeda’s senior leadership to push themselves forward in the public viewpoint,” says Maj. Reid Sawyer, editor of “Terrorism and Counterterrorism” and a lecturer of terrorism studies at Columbia University

Zawahiri hopes to put himself on equal footing with world leaders by doing an “Al Qaeda Press Avail,” as the Flack calls it. As a PR pro, he’s calling bullshit on it [e.a.].

By feigning media access, the organization cultivates an image of civilized engagement among the unsuspecting masses, all the while perpetrating or planning unspeakable actions.

“Jarret Brachman, a former CIA analyst now in the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point describes this as playing to the YouTube generation. ‘It completely fits Al Qaeda’s communications strategy over the past two years, which is how to get people more invested in the movement.’”

And Zawahiri is not alone in gaming the court of public opinion by playing the “freedom of the press” card. A free media today seems more of a propaganda tool and less of a requirement to qualify as a modern society.

The Flack is certainly right to note that all kinds of international players are now gaming the court of public opinion. I wouldn’t characterize our free media as a propaganda tool, though, but rather as a rich propaganda outlet or channel-–one that the world’s most mischievous and/or bad actors (dictators and/or theocratic totalitarians) are very savvy about exploiting via PRopaganda^TM (PR-fueled “dramatic narratives”) because they are so savvy about actual propaganda in their own autocracies, dictatorships, and/or totalitarian theocracies.

Influencing public opinion is a black art in totalitarian societies and dictatorships. It is often subtle. (Even autocrats and theocrats find that it is much more effective to persuade the people to come around to their point of view than it is to have to police them and punish them all the time. Understandably, people get impatient and upset with that kind of violence and will try to revolt. So if you want to suppress them and keep them pacified, you have to be less obvious about your control over them, more refined, more convincing. Dictatorships that want to last need the silent consent of their people, so they spend an inordinate amount of time building theories and revisionist histories and other narratives that “justify” their existence. These narratives are constantly “streamed” through their societies—via textbooks, classrooms, party conference papers, academia, and of course the media, which is controlled by the state.)

Of course the world’s bad guys are going to have superlative media skills.

The Flack writes:

Think Putin, Ahmadinejad, Assad and all the other despots who’ve gutted their nation’s free media, without any real retribution.

Well, not quite. These men haven’t gutted their nations’ free media. What free media? Iran has no free media. Syria has no free media. Russia has only a nominally free media since Putin took power.

The absence of freedom (of the press, among other things) in these countries—and the (dictatorial, theocratic, autocratic, or totalitarian) mode of power their leaders hold over their people—is exactly the problem with them.

It’s important that American media organizations and media-related professionals understand how easy it is for them to be used as propaganda outlets by the world’s bad actors.

But if execs like CNN’s Jonathan Klein, for example, are any indication, our media conglomerates are so uninterested in the content of what they air (as long as it brings in plenty of dough) that they notoriously turn a blind eye to the beyond-the-news-cycle impact of glorifying, say, Vladimir Putin:

Platon for TIME

After cleverly naming my blog Infotainment Rules, I’ve been writing for nearly two years about the total collapse of the pretense that television offers programming called worthy of the term “the news.” CNN prez Jonathan Klein hammers the final nails into the coffin here.

First, he decries the absence of horrifying news events (such as, I assume, tsunamis and spectacular terrorist attacks) in the year 2007, because they would have dragged in more overall viewers:

“It hasn’t been the greatest news year,” Mr. Klein said. “There haven’t been major news events that have moved the needle.

Then he says that to compete in the 8 o’clock slot (against Keith Olbermann), CNN will use its news footage to provide yucks for viewers:

Mr. Klein suggested that Campbell Brown’s new 8 p.m. show, set to debut in February, would compete by being “more talk-oriented,” by featuring fewer “formal pieces,” and by on occasion capitalizing on Ms. Brown’s sometimes-comic sensibility towards the news, à la Comedy’s Central The Daily Show. “Jon Stewart should not corner the market on innovative uses of tape,” said Mr. Klein. “He wishes he had access to the amount of material we get in every day.”

Finally, he promotes CNN’s “documentaries”—such as the God’s Warriors by Christiane Amanpour, which suggested that Jewish and Christian fundamentalists are as big a threat to the world as the Islamist freaks who like to blow up, torture, main, cripple, intimidate, and terrify innocents, Muslim and otherwise, the world over for the glory of Allah [e.a.].

Mr. Klein said that when he arrived at CNN in November 2004, he discovered a documentary team focused primarily on “arcane” subject matter.

Under Mr. Klein’s direction, CNN documentaries have married high-profile CNN reporters with equally high-profile subjects—Christiane Amanpour and religious fundamentalism, Campbell Brown and political attack ads, Anderson Cooper and the environment. Mr. Klein said he encourages his reporters to draw conclusions in their documentaries—an upshot of which, he acknowledged, is that CNN docs increasingly “step on some vested interests, and they do respond.”

Sure enough, over the past year, CNN documentaries have riled up everyone from media watchdog types to conservative political operatives to MSNBC’s Dan Abrams to professional wrestlers. Mr. Klein suggested that he wouldn’t shy away from the hostile attention in the years to come—and suggested it probably does the network as much good as harm.

“What I love is when our competitors then turn that into segments on their shows,” said Mr. Klein. “They have nothing else to talk about other than who has CNN pissed off today. That’s great. We’ll provide fodder for their programming, as long as they get our initials right.”

See, as long as CNN is getting attention, its president doesn’t care what it gets attention for. The content of his programs is of interest to him only to the extent that it garners attention. Whether the subject is World War Three or Anna Nicole Smith doesn’t matter to him. Is he ashamed to admit it? Fuggedaboudit! He loves it! And he’s signed on for four more years!

Here’s his picture for your dartboard:

I am mystified by the Virginia Heffernan’s NYT review of “The Muslim Americans,” an episode of PBS’s America at the Crossroads series. Heffernan seethes with indignation that the film (which I haven’t seen yet—I’m Tivo’ing the whole thing: hey! I’m a busy person!) features only Muslims who are content to be Americans:

“The Muslim Americans” could have been really powerful.

Coulda shoulda woulda. Instead:

Women of preternatural beauty are shown in hijab alongside minivans. The Muslim men are described, at one point, as mostly doctors and lawyers. Even one who was falsely singled out by the F.B.I. — he had the same name as someone on their watch list — doesn’t seem that bothered by the experience. Everyone appears to love our big, warm, happy melting pot. They simply want to worship discreetly and get back to business. Perfect Americans.

Ms. Heffernan was looking for something else, though: the frisson of transgressiveness (about which more—a lot more—another time):

That’s fine, as far as it goes. But it makes a rather dull and not especially enlightening documentary. Does not one Muslim here think the nudity on American beaches is appalling? Or that Muslim girls shouldn’t date Christian boys? Or that jihad contains an element of violence? Or that the war in Iraq is unjustified? Or that 9/11 was (in the words of some Brooklyn graffiti) “an inside job”? Come on. Are Muslims really that much more measured and evenhanded than everyone else?

Someone is conflating Islam, which is a religion like any other, with fanatical, fundamentalist Islamism, which is a perverse totalitarian ideology masquerading as a religion. Someone is buying into the ignorant and idiotic notion that American Muslims have a reason to be seething with resentment against the United States. Indeed, someone at the New York Times is trying to promote that notion.

Why?

From Google News at 8 a.m.:

‘All efforts’ in hunt for BBC man
BBC News, UK - 1 hour ago
Every possible effort is being made to secure the release of BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston, a Palestinian presidential aide has said. …
Reporters without borders calls for speedy release of BBC journalist Indian Muslims
Captors to free abducted BBC reporter soon: sources People’s Daily Online
PA police may have helped snatch BBC reporter Jerusalem Post
IFEX - Post Chronicle
all 44 news articles »

I missed this, but a couple of days ago, CNN’s Ben Wedemen posted a “behind the scenes” column. He’s “chilled” by the kidnapping of his professional colleague Johnston. He also says that kidnapping has become a way of life in Gaza:

On more than one occasion [Johnston and Wedeman] talked about the danger of kidnapping. Alan’s attitude, and mine, was usually to treat the phenomenon as an unfortunate inconvenience, as a potential danger, but something that was becoming a fact of life there. Both of us saw Gaza as an intriguing, tragic place, where we were often met with generosity and openness from people who, given their circumstances, might have been expected to be hostile. …

I am hoping Alan emerges from this nightmare without too many psychological scars. He is a very easy-going, soft-spoken, good-humored, amiable person — someone who takes his job seriously and takes the time to listen to every point of view. If anyone is well-equipped to endure, it’s Alan.

Wedeman also describes reality on the ground—as he sees it—in Gaza:

Gaza is a small, cramped and crowded place where it’s hard to keep a secret from anyone, where everybody knows everybody. Most Gazans are aghast every time a kidnapping takes place, and few will make excuses for the kidnappers. Kidnapping goes completely contrary to traditional Arab values of generosity and kindness to strangers. But it’s become a fact of life. In recent trips, my Gazan friends have insisted that they accompany me back to my hotel after work or after a get-together. They say it’s out of courtesy, but I’ve always suspected it’s really out of concern. [e.a.]

Obviously, that traditional Arab value of kindness to strangers doesn’t apply to Israelis. There are currently three Israeli kidnap victims being held for ransom by Arabs, which Ben Wedeman shamefully fails to mention:

Gilad Shalit

Ehud Goldwasser

Eldad Regev

(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 »

Unfortunately, there is nothing new to report about missing BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped in Gaza nearly seven days ago.

He was mentioned pointedly by Saeb Erekat, former spokesman for Yasser Arafat and now a Fatah moderate and spokesman for the equally moderate Mahmoud Abbas, who went out of his way to mention Johnston. (Of course Johnston has been a strong voice for the Palestinians as a reporter stationed in Gaza.) The New York Times story was about the formation of the unity government of Palestinians:

In their speeches to the Palestinian Legislative Counci … Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniya stood by their party positions. Mr. Abbas appealed to Israelis and their government “to take the road of a just peace by resuming negotiations” with him in order to “give future generations a hope of peaceful coexistence and put an end to the suffering and the cycle of violence.” …

But Mr. Haniya said that resistance to Israeli occupation would continue, though he said his government would seek “to consolidate and broaden” to the West Bank an often-broken truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

The continuing tension and the unresolved conflicts between Fatah and Hamas were evident in what Erekat had to say:

Saeb Erekat, also an aide to Mr. Abbas and a negotiator, was critical of Mr. Haniya’s speech for being less a government program than a partisan address.

“This is a coalition, and I hoped Haniya’s speech would be more than a campaign speech,” he said. “I wanted to hear dates and timetables, to hear him say give me 100 days or even 1,000 days to end the chaos and lawlessness. I wanted to know where is Alan Johnston of the BBC.” Mr. Johnston was kidnapped in Gaza and was last heard from Monday.

Mr. Erekat said he wanted Mr. Haniya, “as prime minister of all Palestinians, to renounce violence and accept the two-state solution.” Mr. Haniya “came a long way by mentioning the 1967 borders, that’s fine, but I urge him to go the extra mile by explicitly accepting the international principles,” he said.

The Times also mentions in passing something that usually goes unmentioned in polite society:

Mr. Abbas also expressed hope that the international community would welcome the new government, which has a number of cosmopolitan figures with whom the West is accustomed to dealing,

“Cosmopolitan figures”? Is that the extent of their qualification?

So: nothing about Johnston. Also nothing about the shocking attack on the UNWRA chief in Gaza.

Is there a news blackout for terrible stories involving Palestinians that don’t involve Israelis doing those terrible things to Palestinians? A gal could wonder…

Nothing.

This is the only report that appeared overnight on Google News.

BBC man still missing
Business Portal 24 (press release), Germany - 6 hours ago
No details have yet emerged concerning the whereabouts of the BBC’s Gaza Correspondent Alan Johnston who went missing on March 12. …

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.

You will start to hear more about the abduction of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston in Gaza very soon—ironically, only because that actual kidnapping has been surpassed by the (apparently) much more shocking failed kidnapping in Gaza.

First the headlines from Google News.

Gunmen ambush UN convoy in Gaza in bid to abduct agency chief
Independent, UK - 5 hours 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. …
Gunmen attempt to kidnap UN refugee mission chief in Gaza Ha’aretz
Gaza Gunmen Fire on UN Car in Possible Kidnapping Try New York Times
UN man escapes Gaza kidnap bid Guardian Unlimited
all 88 news articles »

AlaskaReport

New ‘unity’ cabinet may end Palestinian blockade Belfast Telegraph, UK - 17 hours ago On the kidnap last Monday of the BBC correspondent in Gaza, Alan Johnston, Mr Haniyeh said that he and Mr Abbas had “given instructions to all security … Vote due on Palestinian Cabinet BBC News all 1,222 news articles »

And now here’s some detail from the NYT’s Steven Erlanger, who finally has a reason to delve into the few known details of the Johnston kidnapping—but first the shocking new developments that will push this story into the news cycle:

In an apparent kidnapping attempt, Palestinian gunmen on Friday fired 14 bullets into the armored car of the Gaza director of the United Nations refugee agency.

The official, John Ging, was returning to Gaza from Israel through the Erez checkpoint in a white armored car that was clearly marked with United Nations insignia and a U.N. flag, and was surrounded by two other U.N. cars. …

“This is unprecedented, to shoot at a clearly marked U.N. vehicle with a U.N. flag flying in broad daylight,” Mr. Ging said. “It’s a very serious, shocking development, and we’re still considering how to deal with this.”

The UN is the greatest contributor to the welfare of millions of needy Palestinians. Assaulting your protector isn’t such a hot idea, of course. This is … hideous. The Palestinian territories are out of control.

Erlanger says nothing is known officially about the fate of Johnston, but he feels free now to credit one of the theories:

Palestinian leaders have called for his release but have said little about him, and the BBC has also provided few details.

But Palestinian security officials in Gaza suggest that Mumtaz Dagmoush, a militant leader of a large clan in northern Gaza, is behind the kidnapping. Mr. Dagmoush was behind the kidnapping of two Fox News correspondents last summer; they were held for two weeks.

Mr. Dagmoush is in a battle with Hamas, demanding revenge for the shooting of two Dagmoush clan members by Hamas members of the Executive Force, a parallel police force in Gaza. Palestinian security officials said Mr. Dagmoush is demanding that more than 10 Hamas men be handed over to him or to the courts before Mr. Johnston is released.

Hmmm, I thought. Dagmoush. Where have I seen that name before? Was it on Debka?

No. Debka refers to [e.a.] “the brothers Mumtaz and Muetaz Durmush [and, later in the same story, "Durmishes" --ed.] Different name. Plus: Debka specifically calls them “al Qaeda.”

Huh?

Mumtaz Dagmoush (a “militant leader of a large clan,” NYT)

Mumtaz Durmush. (”an al Qaeda group,” Debka)

Google. Curiously, there are lots of hits for Mumtaz Durmush (and only one for Dagmoush).

Durmush is a known kidnapper, according to Omedia:

The Durmush Clan—a Key to the Shalit Affair

Let it be known that the “Durmush Clan” was also recently involved in the kidnapping of two correspondents from the American television channel Fox News, who were liberated in the end in return for a ransom payment of about $ 1 million, which was transferred via the Hamas government. In any case, amongst informed circles in the Gaza Strip, the general assessment is that Durmush and his people tend to camouflage themselves behind various organizational noms de guerre such as “the Islamic Army”, “Palestine Al Qaeda”, “the Sacred Jihad Brigade” as well as the “Muslim Swords Brigades of Fatah”. This sounds like local media hype, to give an aura of power to a most esoteric gang, which presumably relies on the link to global Al Qaeda.

It’s too late to delve any further into his political affiliations, if any. Maybe tomorrow, if I have time.

Meanwhile, here are a few questions for the New York Times:

What’s the guy’s name—Dagmoush or Durmush? is he a “militant”? does he claim to be al Qaeda? what gives?

Day four of the kidnapping of Alan Johnston in Gaza. At 8:45 a.m., here’s what’s on Google News:

No Sign Of BBC Reporter, Alan Johnston
Post Chronicle - 8 hours ago
The BBC issued a plea Thursday for information that would help locate missing Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston. Johnston, who has been the BBC’s reporter in …
No sign of BBC reporter Earthtimes.org
No sign of BBC reporter United Press International
BBC makes appeal for Gaza reporter