Entries Tagged 'news blackout' ↓

(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.

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…