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Developed by:
| April | 17 |
| 2007 |
There are few murkier and more dispiriting stories of late than the kidnap of Alan Johnston and the events which have followed it.
As Caroline Gluck rightly points out in the Jerusalem Post:
POOR JOHNSTON was so biased in favor of the Palestinians that he could have been forgiven for believing he would be safe from Palestinian terror. As the BBC's Middle East Bureau chief Simon Wilson put it, Johnston "is regarded as a Gaza journalist foremost and a foreign journalist second." The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said that Johnston is "famous for his opinions which are supportive of the Palestinians."
Will the fact that the kidnappers seized - and, so it seems, murdered - a journalist so friendly to the Palestinians contribute in any way to a more level-headed assessment of the nature of Palestinian terrorism? Of course not. Anyone who has ever followed the media would know what the next stage of this affair would be: blame the Israelis.
Right on cue, the NUJ voted to boycott Israeli goods.
When this decision came under attack, the NUJ defended it on the grounds that the boycott was a quid pro quo for the Palestinian journalists' union opposing the kidnap of Johnstone.
Do I really need to point out what this means? Reversing the logic: Palestinian journalists think it's fine to kidnap other journalists but in this instance are prepared to oppose a kidnapping if a foreign union votes to boycott Israel.
Not that anyone can really think that that was all there is to it. Any observer of the NUJ would not be in the least bit shocked that the union decided to boycott for no other reason than that Israel exists.
The boycott is, in any case, puzzling. As Caroline Gluck continues:
It will be interesting to see how they manage to implement their boycott and work as reporters at the same time. Since Israeli engineers developed their cell phones, their Pentium chip computers, their voicemail and their instant messenger software, boycotting Israel will involve giving up their ability to quickly amass their anti-Israel propaganda, vomit it out on their computers and send it off to their Israel-bashing editors.
It's important in all this not to lose sight of the fact that a man has been murdered by Palestinian terrorists. It is entirely right that there were demonstrations, protests and attemots to free him. But isn't it about time that the same standard was applied by those who were protesting for Johnston's release to Israeli victims of Palestinian terror?
MessageSpace
What the Hell?
Stephen, you could have saved yourself the humanitarian feelings. Johnson deliberately made himself a shill for that murderous shower. Perhaps it is that early personal experience taught me that evil men are never grateful and never pay you back for favours, but as far as I am concerned, "why, man, he did make love to his employment" (Hamlet). Anyone who deludes himself that lying down with wolves will make the wolves ignore him is clean out of his mind. You deal with the Devil, you get the Devil's justice.
The truth, and what morons like Johnson could never get to understand, is that no amount of journalistic whitewashing will give Islamists what they want. However much they preach in their favour, however much they may depict them as victims and as absolute sweethearts, it is the very dynamic of things that any report from a Muslim country will be associated with violence and backwardness. And so, even against all the desires and all the politics of all the criminal shills (="journalists") in the world, the public, which gets an impression by a mass of successive ill-remembered repetitions, will inevitably build up an image of violence, backwardness and oppression. And that is exactly the opposite of what the Islamists, whose ego is as monstrous as their understanding is small, want. They want to be admired. They want to be loved, dreaded, respected; not pitied and treated as objects of support at best, contempt at worst. Hence even a vicious propagandist like Johnson inevitably ends up failing his acquired owners, and ends up paying the price. Not that it teaches anything to his colleagues, of course.
Didn't you think though, that Caroline Gluck went rather over the top with her anti-British comments?
There's an excellent rebuttal of the boycott by Tony Harnden on his blog at the Telegraph:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign/tobyharnden/april07/savageisrael.htm
It's well worth a read.
The British refuse to recognize (as Glick points out) that they share the same enemies as Israel does.
It's those dirty Jews!
Alan Hart, former ITN and BBC Panorama reporter, tells us that if Johnston has been killed, it was Israel what done it. In actual fact, I take full responsibility. I managed to fit it into a full day's work of poisoning wells and conspiring with fellow-Jews to influence George Bush (we usually achieve this last by performing a Vulcan mind-meld). My next job concerns Brian Sewell, the infamous anti-Semite. Our plan is to turn him straight so that he loses all credibility with the British ruling classes (next stop, Matthew Parris!).
More from Little Green Footballs on the Alan Hart claims:
UK Journalist: Israel Probably Murdered Alan Johnston
http://tinyurl.com/2fn5dz
What a thoroughly unpleasant article from a clearly thoroughly unpleasant person.
She is right about one thing, though - the UK should distance itself as much as possible from Israel.
Ted
The truth is always "throughly unpleasant" isn't it? The truth of the matter is that everything Caroline Glick wrote was true. Israel does not want or need any advice or help from Britain since Britain still thinks that the Palestine Mandate is in force.
I wonder why they are such low quality people, the so-called Palestinians. It's always puzzled me.