Alan Johnston Follow Up

Missed this from two weeks ago:

Honour for kidnapped journalist

Freed journalist Alan Johnston is to be awarded an honorary degree by a Scottish university.

The BBC correspondent, who was held hostage for 114 days, is being given an honorary doctorate of letters by Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

And Terry Waite - who was abducted in 1987 and held for a total of 1,763 days while working to secure the release of European hostages held in the Lebanon - is also being honoured by the same university.

Great. Getting honored for being terror hostage victims who sympathize with the "plight of the terrorists".

Making Money Out of a Kidnapping

Ah, so this is why Alan Johnston was quiet and unreachable:

Next week sees the publication of Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches, an account of his incarceration at the hands of the Islamic Army

More from the interview:-

He looks less drawn than in those first euphoric images of him walking to freedom, and more calm. "This whole post kidnap period has been very, very strange. I mean, my mum told me they'd projected my head onto Battersea power station. I mean, I used to think of myself as the correspondent Obscuristan, and when you've been in solitary confinement, and my big old head's being projected like Stalin - well, it's just the strangest thing. And there have been some very strange moments. The other day this chap got chatting to me on a train, and he said, you know, if I were a betting man I'd have put 50 quid on you not making it."

He thought about escaping, but never tried and worried about that. "I wasn't brave enough. I did worry, because there were times when I listened on the radio and there were all these people doing so much, and I thought all it takes is for you to shove that guy when he comes in and you're out of here. And then you could take your whole fate into your hands. It could be, you know, a dazzling response to your crisis, you'd free yourself. But shoving him would be to introduce violence to the game. I'm the least violent guy I know, and he's an urban guerrilla, half my age and twice as strong." And besides, he points out, he probably wouldn't have got very far. "You can't have a westerner imprisoned at the top of the stairs without everyone in the building being on board."

He seems to embody classic BBC qualities of perspective and self-effacement, and the capacity for empathy evident in his work sustained him psychologically. When I suggest this, he winces at the idea of "bigging yourself up" and keeps stressing that he wasn't always strong enough to control his bleaker thoughts. "It was a continual effort. Always. But I kept on thinking that in the great stories of human incarceration, yours of being locked in a room in Gaza where they don't give you a hard time, and you're reasonably fed, isn't so bad.

Alan Johnston's Story; Finally

We've been wondering where the lad has been. He was freed on July 4. Almost 4 months have gone by with too much quiet. After all, as a BBC vet, here's easily up to 5 reports a day.

But he is making news out of it. His story was broadcast on Thursday, 25 October, 2007 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4 and Panorama broadcast Kidnapped - The Alan Johnston Story on Thursday, 25 October, 2007 at 2100 BST on BBC One.

Here are excerpts from his BBC blog:

But the experience of incarceration does have a way of lingering, of haunting the nights. I dream sometimes that I am in captivity again, and I cannot tell you how good it is to wake and gradually realise that, actually, I am free. Safe, back at home, on the shores of Loch Goil. But the nightmares come less frequently now. And although psychologists might say that these are still quite early days, I very much believe that I am going to be fine.

And the kidnap's legacy is not all bad. With its locks and chains, its solitary confinement and moments of terror, it was a kind of dark education.

I lived through things which before I would have struggled to imagine and maybe, in the end, I will be stronger for that. I have gained too a deeper sense of the value of freedom.

Perhaps only if you have ever been some kind of prisoner, can you truly understand its worth. Even now, more than three months after I was freed, it can still seem faintly magical to do the simplest things, like walk down a street in the sunshine, or sit in a cafe with a newspaper.

And in my captivity in Gaza, I learnt again that oldest of lessons. That in life, all that really, really matters, are the people you love.

A saloon car had suddenly surged past mine, and then pulled up, forcing me to stop. A young man emerged from the passenger side and pointed a pistol at me.

I had reported many times on the kidnapping of foreigners in Gaza. Now, as I always feared it might, my turn had come. The figure with the pistol and another gunman forced me into their car, and as we sped off I was made to lie on the back seat.

In the claustrophobic, intense, violent, sliver of land that is Gaza, there was now a shadowy organisation that thought in terms of waging Jihad on the West

A hood had been shoved over my face, but through it I could see the sun flickering between the tower blocks. I could tell that we were heading south and east, towards the city's rougher neighbourhoods.

Most kidnappings in Gaza used to be carried out by disgruntled militant groups seeking the attention of the authorities in some minor dispute. And always the Westerner was freed within a week or so, shaken but unharmed. But the game had changed last summer.

A much more sinister group had emerged and seized two members of a team from the American Fox News network. They were freed, but only after making a video-taped denunciation of the West, and a public conversion to Islam. Of course this was serious.

I felt that Gaza's story was important.

It is at the centre of the Palestinian drama, which in turn lies at the heart of the rising tensions between the East and the West that have become the defining story of our time.

So, in consultation with senior colleagues, I decided that the risks were worth taking, and I stayed in Gaza.

And I did manage to keep out of the grasp of the kidnappers almost to the end. When the man with the pistol emerged from the white saloon, I had just 16 days left until I was due to leave for good.

Another Call for Alan Johnston

Anybody hear anything from or about Alan Johnston, the aducted BBC bloke?

Two months have gone by since his release and nary a word.

Alan Johnston - Where Are You?

It's been three weeks since the BBC's man-in-Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston, was released after being abducted by Arab freedom fighters or whatever.

This, I think, is the last news report on him.

When will he speak up (and out?) on the 114 days of captivity?

Is he writing a book on his experiences?

Many people labored for his release and identified, as I did, with his plight, despite misgivings about some of his reporting. When do we hear from him?

I Didn't Know That

Did you know that Simon Wilson had moved down to Gaza for the first three weeks of Alan Johnston's kidnapping?

And that he and a few colleagues had to leave because a group of masked men were following them around and Simon was informed that it would better for him and associates to leace?

And that he went to Damascus to meet with Hamas leaders (Meshal?) there?

I didn't.

Read all about it.

And by the way, funny how we haven't heard a thing of or from Alan since his release.

Thumbs Up; Thumbs Down

Thumbs up for Alan Johnston and Simon gives the 'thumbs-up':-



But we give him the thumbs down for this bit of propaganda:-

That's How You Do It

Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman, said Johnston's captors had responded positively to recent efforts by tribal and religious leaders to end Johnston's ordeal. Taha said the Army of Islam would not be dismantled or disarmed in return for freeing the reporter.

Army of Islam spokesman Abu Khatab al-Maqdisi, who had been arrested by Hamas as a potentially valuable bargaining chip earlier this week, said his faction would work together with Hamas, a onetime ally.

Source

And Had Israel Done the Kidnapping/Abducting?

What if Israelis had abducted BBC man?

By Charles Moore

Watching the horrible video of Alan Johnston of the BBC broadcasting Palestinian propaganda under orders from his kidnappers, I found myself asking what it would have been like had he been kidnapped by Israelis, and made to do the same thing the other way round.

The first point is that it would never happen. There are no Israeli organisations - governmental or freelance - that would contemplate such a thing. That fact is itself significant.

But just suppose that some fanatical Jews had grabbed Mr Johnston and forced him to spout their message, abusing his own country as he did so. What would the world have said?

There would have been none of the caution which has characterised the response of the BBC and of the Government since Mr Johnston was abducted on March 12. The Israeli government would immediately have been condemned for its readiness to harbour terrorists or its failure to track them down.

Loud would have been the denunciations of the extremist doctrines of Zionism which had given rise to this vile act. The world isolation of Israel, if it failed to get Mr Johnston freed, would have been complete.

If Mr Johnston had been forced to broadcast saying, for example, that Israel was entitled to all the territories held since the Six-Day War, and calling on the release of all Israeli soldiers held by Arab powers in return for his own release, his words would have been scorned. The cause of Israel in the world would have been irreparably damaged by thus torturing him on television. No one would have been shy of saying so.

But of course in real life it is Arabs holding Mr Johnston, and so everyone treads on tip-toe. Bridget Kendall of the BBC opined that Mr Johnston had been "asked" to say what he said in his video. Asked! If it were merely an "ask", why did he not say no?

Throughout Mr Johnston's captivity, the BBC has continually emphasised that he gave "a voice" to the Palestinian people, the implication being that he supported their cause, and should therefore be let out. One cannot imagine the equivalent being said if he had been held by Israelis.

Well, he is certainly giving a voice to the Palestinian people now. And the truth is that, although it is under horrible duress, what he says is not all that different from what the BBC says every day through the mouths of reporters who are not kidnapped and threatened, but are merely collecting their wages.

The language is more lurid in the Johnston video, but the narrative is essentially the same as we have heard over the years from Orla Guerin and Jeremy Bowen and virtually the whole pack of them.

It is that everything that is wrong in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world is the result of aggression or "heavy-handedness" (have you noticed how all actions by American or Israeli troops are "heavy-handed", just as surely as all racism is "unacceptable"?) by America or Israel or Britain.

Alan Johnston, under terrorist orders, spoke of the "absolute despair" of the Palestinians and attributed it to 40 years of Israeli occupation, "supported by the West". That is how it is presented, night after night, by the BBC.

The other side is almost unexamined. There is little to explain the internecine strife in the Arab world, particularly in Gaza, or the cynical motivations of Arab leaders for whom Palestinian miseries are politically convenient.

You get precious little investigation of the networks and mentalities of Islamist extremism - the methods and money of Hamas or Hizbollah and comparable groups - which produce acts of pure evil like that in which Mr Johnston is involuntarily complicit.

The spotlight is not shone on how the "militants" (the BBC does not even permit the word "terrorist" in the Middle East context) and the warlords maintain their corruption and rule of fear, persecuting, among others, the Palestinians.

Instead it shines pitilessly on Blair and Bush and on Israel.

From the hellish to the ridiculous, the pattern is the same.
Back at home, the Universities and Colleges Union has just voted for its members to "consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions".

Well, they could consider how work by scientists at the Technion in Haifa has led to the production of the drug Velcade, which treats multiple myeloma. Or they could look at the professor at Ben-Gurion University who discovered a bacteria that fights malaria and river blindness by killing mosquitoes and black fly.

Or they could study the co-operation between researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who have isolated the protein that triggers stress in order to try to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and their equivalents at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

The main universities of Israel are, in fact, everything that we in the West would recognise as proper universities. They have intellectual freedom. They do not require an ethnic or religious qualification for entry. They are not controlled by the government. They have world-class standards of research, often producing discoveries which benefit all humanity. In all this, they are virtually unique in the Middle East.

The silly dons are not alone. The National Union of Journalists, of which I am proud never to have been a member, has recently passed a comparable motion, brilliantly singling out the only country in the region with a free press for pariah treatment.
Unison, which is a big, serious union, is being pressed to support a boycott of Israeli goods, products of the only country in the region with a free trade union movement.

The doctrine is that Israel practises "apartheid" and that it must therefore be boycotted.

All this is moral madness. It is not mad, of course, to criticise Israeli policy. In some respects, indeed, it would be mad not to. It is not mad - though I think it is mistaken - to see the presence of Israel as the main reason for the lack of peace in the region.

But it is mad or, perhaps one should rather say, bad to try to raid Western culture's reserves of moral indignation and expend them on a country that is part of that culture in favour of surrounding countries that aren't. How can we have got ourselves into a situation in which we half-excuse turbaned torturers for kidnapping our fellow-citizens while trying to exclude Jewish biochemists from lecturing to our students?

Nobody yet knows the precise motivations of Mr Johnston's captors, but it is surely not a coincidence that they held him in silence until the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War approached, and only then made him speak. They wanted him to give the world their historical explanation - Israeli oppression
- for their cause.

Yet that war took place because President Nasser of Egypt led his country and his allies declaring "\u2026our basic aim will be to destroy Israel".

He failed, abjectly, and Egypt and Jordan later gave up the aspiration. But many others maintain it to this day, now with a pseudo-religious gloss added.

We keep giving sympathetic air-time to their death cult. In a way, Mr Johnston is paying the price: his captors are high on the oxygen of his corporation's publicity.

As for Israel, many sins can be laid to its charge. But it is morally serious in a way that we are not, because it has to be.
Forty years after its greatest victory, it has to work out each morning how it can survive.

Just Who Is 'Scurillous'?

This following op-ed was termed scurrilous by Fran Unsworth, a BBC editor.

A Reporter's Fate

Dozens of hostages were released in Gaza over the weekend, in the wake of a truce called between the warring factions of Hamas and Fatah. The BBC's Alan Johnston, now in his 11th week of captivity, was not among them...

January 2005...There had been a sharp decline in Israeli-Palestinian violence, thanks mainly to Israeli counterterrorism measures and the security fence. A Benetton outlet had opened in Ramallah, signaling better times ahead.

In Gaza things were different, however, and Mr. Johnston was prescient in reporting on the potential for internecine strife: "This internal conflict between police and the militants cannot happen," one of his stories quotes a Palestinian police chief as saying. "It is forbidden. We are a single nation."



When Mr. Johnston was kidnapped...he became at least the 23rd Western journalist to have been held hostage in Gaza. In most cases the kidnappings rarely lasted more than a day. Yet in August FOXNews's Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were held for two weeks, physically abused and forced to convert to Islam. Plainly matters were getting progressively worse for foreigners. So why did the BBC keep Mr. Johnston in place?

...Yet the BBC also seemed to operate in the Palestinian Authority with a sense of political impunity. Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti described Mr. Johnston as someone who "has done a lot for our cause"--not the sort of endorsement one imagines the BBC welcoming from an equivalent figure on the Israeli side. Other BBC correspondents were notorious for making their politics known to their viewers: Barbara Plett confessed to breaking into tears when Arafat was airlifted to a Parisian hospital in October 2004; Orla Guerin treated Israel's capture of a living, wired teenage suicide bomber that March as nothing more than a PR stunt--"a picture that Israel wants the world to see."

Though doubtlessly sincere, these views also conferred institutional advantages for the BBC in terms of access and protection, one reason why the broadcaster might have felt relatively comfortable posting Mr. Johnston in a place no other news agency dared to go.

...The British government is reportedly in talks with a radical Islamist cleric in their custody, Abu Qatada, whose release the Army of Islam has demanded for Mr. Johnston's freedom. What the British will do, and what effect that might have, remains to be seen.

For now, one can only pray for Mr. Johnston's safe release. Later, the BBC might ask itself whether its own failures of prudence and judgment put its reporter's life in jeopardy. The BBC's Paul Adams has said of his colleague that it was "his job to bring us day after day reports of the Palestinian predicament." For that act of solidarity one hopes a terrible price will not be paid.

An Improvement on "Militants" - "Extremists"

As Little Green Footballs points out, the media is referring Pals. in some instances of "extremists" which we can presume is one level, at least, above "militants".

Here:-

A Palestinian extremist group on Wednesday claimed to be holding a BBC journalist kidnapped nearly two months ago in Gaza and demanded the release of a radical Muslim cleric in British custody.

Probably it's all the BBC's fault. After all, it one of theirs kidnapped.

So, Exactly What IS Verifiable?

BBC's Johnston 'in good health'

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, abducted in Gaza on 12 March, is in good health, Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Azzam al-Ahmad has said. Mr Ahmad met the UK's consul-general to Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, in Ramallah to discuss the efforts being made to secure Mr Johnston's release.

Mr Ahmad's office said in a statement: "The information that we have indicates that Johnston is in good health.

"The [Palestinian] government is fully co-ordinating with the presidency and all security services to pursue the extensive efforts to release Johnston and bring him back safely to his home, family and his work."

A previously unknown militant group said more than a week ago that it had killed the correspondent, but the BBC and Palestinian officials have said they have been unable to verify the claim.

Can't figure this out. What is and what is not and what cannot be verified in this story?

So, Why So Much Time?

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday he had been given confirmation that the kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was alive.

On a trip to Sweden, Mr Abbas indicated he knew who was holding Mr Johnston, seized by gunmen on 12 March. "Our intelligence services have confirmed to me that he's alive. I want to acquire his release alive. Therefore it is taking some time."

Why?

On English Journalists

IN 1930, poet Humbert Wolfe wrote his immortal ode to the English press:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist

(thank God) the British journalist.

But seeing what the man will do

Unbribed, there's no occasion to.

(Kippah tip: Zev Chafets via RG)

Alan Johnston Update

From Melanie Phillips blog:-

The NUJ itself has been trying to justify its action but only digging itself further into a very deep hole. Tim Gopsill, the editor of the NUJ’s own house rag The Journalist, told a caller that the boycott was ‘to reward the Palestinian Journalist Union for cooperating with the Alan Johnston campaign.’ This head-scratching absurdity was echoed in an idiotic and self-serving statement put out by the NUJ, in which it said:

The call for the boycott in part related it to the kidnap of Alan Johnston. The Palestinian journalists union has given huge support to the campaign for his release - holding demonstrations and strikes against the Palestinian Authority to demand more action from them.

The Palestinian journalists’ union, of course, demonstrated against the Palestinian Authority because Johnston was kidnapped by Palestinians. The NUJ apparently cannot grasp quite how demented it is, therefore, to boycott Israel because of the kidnap of Alan Johnston. If something nasty happens in the Middle East, they think Israel is the only party to be blamed. If Palestinians kill Jews, blame Israel. If Palestinians kill Palestinians, blame Israel. If Palestinians kidnap a British NUJ member, blame Israel. And if Palestinian journalists protest to Palestinians about the kidnap by Palestinians of a British journalist, those Palestinian journalists are to be ‘rewarded’ by — a boycott of Israel.

How can anyone now take such people seriously in anything they write? But the NUJ are positively pillars of intellectual and moral rigour compared with Alan Hart, who opines:

There is a case for saying (repeat a case) that the party with most to gain from Alan Johnston’s permanent disappearance was Israel. It would not be the first time that Israeli agents had dressed as Arabs to make a hit.

A case? There’s as much of a case for saying this as there is a case (repeat a case) for saying that Alan Hart is a man from Mars. Does it not occur to Alan Hart, even given his fanatical belief in the unfathomable depths of Israeli evil, that it would be singularly perverse for Israel to bring about Johnston’s ‘permanent disappearance’, since he was about to permanently disappear from Gaza within few days anyway because his tour of duty there for the BBC was at an end?

Is there a case for saying (repeat a case) that whole swathes of the British media have now been driven by their pathological hatred of Israel clean round the bend?

Didn't I point out that Alan's father had called him a "friend" of the Pals.?

Seems now that Alan's "friends" are mobilizing - against Israel.

Such a topsey-turvey world. So many dumb journalists.

Alan Johnston Update

Seems that a journalists' union is calling for the BBC's Alan Johnston:-

The UK's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has strongly condemned the abduction of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in Gaza more than a month ago. Delegates voted unanimously to support the campaign to free him at their annual conference in Birmingham.

Funny about that NUJ, seems they are very much into the Israel-Arab conflict. Tom Gross is reporting:-

For the first time, Britain's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted to boycott a country, and that country is Israel. The vote was taken late yesterday afternoon by delegates representing different branches of the NUJ.

Just to show what disregard British (and indeed most European) journalists have for the truth about Israel "The motion called for the end of Israeli aggression in Gaza." In case they haven't noticed, Israel withdrew from Gaza in the summer of 2005, and indeed is maintaining a ceasefire even while Palestinian rockets continue to be fired from Gaza on an almost daily basis into Israel, aimed at civilians.

The NUJ motion also spoke of "last year's war in Lebanon." Of course there was a war in Israel too, where hundreds of civilians were killed and injured by Hizbullah rockets, but the National Union of Journalists seems not to have noticed.

Indeed the absence of those evil Israelis in Gaza has given free reign for the journalists' beloved Palestinians to kill and intimidate and kidnap who they want. One of the latest kidnap victims is the BBC's Alan Johnston, who no longer had the Israeli army there to protect him.

If British journalists really want to boycott Israeli goods, they better give up their desktop and notebook computers and their mobile (cell) phones, all of which have components developed and manufactured in Israel.

I checked. The text of the resolutions are on page 18 of this agenda booklet.

The Israel Insider, now that I have done a search, has it up, too. Ah, and Arutz 7 from yesterday.

Well, this action for boycott really ought to get Alan released. First, Alan's father said his son was a "friend" of the Pals. Now, all of Alan's friends are friends of the Pals.

Dinky-dory. (Hunky-dory means all fine) and in my neighborhood slang, dinky-dory meant just the opposite.

-----------------

UPDATE

Now that there's an Arab claim that he's been killed, unconfirmed as yet, will the NUJ now boycott "Palestine" or at least Gaza or something?

Another Alan Johnston Update

Remember I wondered about the BBC kidnapped reporter, Alan Johnston, being described as a "friend" of the Pals.?

Read on:-

Dear Alan,

From the depth of our hearts, I would like to say that we are really shocked and terribly sorry for what has been happening to you.

Three years ago, the first time I met you at the French Cultural Centre when you were covering an art activity, I realized that you were the journalist the Palestinian people are in need of.

The journalist who does not cover only bloodshed, violence and politics, but also knocks on all doors in Gaza: occupation, art, love, religion and all areas that show the entire world that we are human too.

Johnston, we do dislike those who write reports from inside their offices, or copy and paste from the Internet. We are really in a very dire need for people like you who dig in depth to collect the drops of truth.

We need people able and ready to spend a long time in Gaza to understand its people and the details of life here.

Johnston, we are in need of you, because you are not one of those who come to Gaza for a couple of hours or days to write a report while a taxi is waiting for them at Eretz checkpoint.

Hence, we are in need of you to be close to us and do what we used to: taste our warm food, enjoy the azure in the new coming spring after a "hot winter", witness the unendurable suffering of mothers and the soft smiles of children, and smell the breeze of Gaza's sea. I believe that such things come easy to you since you have become one of us.

Three years in Gaza. Your presence and quiet smile have become a part of the journalistic community. They have become a part of the Shawwa and Hosari building. Every time I use the building, I remember you dressed in blue, your smile and warm greetings, and I cannot stop the tears which slowly fall.

Alan Johnston, your accurate and polite words are still alive in our consciousness, and will be forever. And your steps in the alleys of Rafah, Beit Hanoun and Gaza are still felt.

I know that you are spending hard times with those who do not value their country but rather material gains.

As we have been living for decades under the ugly Israeli occupation and are thus well aware how bitter it is to be denied freedom, we believe that you have the right to live and move freely and safely.

Johnston, all citizens, including your friends in Gaza, including myself, pray to God for your safety and for your quick return to your family and to your homeland, simply because you are fellow human, a close friend, a dear colleague and a respected guest in Palestine, and because you are Alan Johnston.

Yours,
Sami Abu Salem,
Journalist,
Gaza

Sami Abu Salem lives in Jabalia Refugee Camp and works as an English news and features writer at the Palestine News Agency (WAFA). He has also worked at the International Press Center of the Palestinian Authority State Information Service, and works as a freelance writer for local newspapers, focusing on literature and arts. This letter has been edited for clarity.

Ah, would there be such journalists for the revenant Jewish population in Yesha. Try this story

Johnston Update; Would They Do That For an Israeli Journalist?

Would they act similarly for an Israeli journalist -

PLC cancels session as entrance blocked by protest of BBC reporter's abduction

Palestinian lawmakers called off a rare parliamentary session on Wednesday after entrance to the Gaza building was blocked by a protest over the abduction of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston.

The demonstration was a part of a three-day strike by Palestinian media to protest the government's inability to find Johnston, who was kidnapped on March 12 in Gaza City. There has been no word on Johnston since and no claim of responsibility by any group. He is now the longest-held reporter in captivity in Gaza, which has prompted concerns about his fate.

Around 40 Palestinian journalists, aid workers and intellectuals, some with tape symbolically placed over their mouths, blocked lawmakers from attending the session. The group had broken off from a larger protest nearby.

Many officials said they suspected that members of the powerful Doghmush clan took Johnston, believing that security officials - both those loyal to the Islamist group Hamas and its rival Fatah - were reluctant to pursue it, fearful of antagonizing the heavily armed family. But a Doghmush leader publicly denied his family's involvement in the kidnapping on Tuesday.

Journalist or even Gilad Shalit?

Alan Johnston Update

Nada.

Journalists in Gaza have held a rally to call for the release of BBC reporter Alan Johnston and an end to the kidnap and intimidation of reporters. The demonstration was the latest in a series of appeals since Mr Johnston disappeared two weeks ago on his way home from work in Gaza City.

More than 100 journalists, politicians, and others attended the rally.

Palestinian officials have said all possible efforts are being made to secure Mr Johnston's release.

All?

All possible?

Maybe they can find Hilad Shalit in the meantime?

First Slap Israel, Then the US

Remember those two incidents in Gaza when, unfortunately two British citizens, one a pacifist-protecting-terrorists and the other a journalist-covering-terrorists were killed by IDF fire?

The peace groups there in the UK and family demanded inquests and trials and what not. It is their right and not problems on that score.

But things move one and from Israel, the Brits hit on the States:-

The death of a UK soldier when a US pilot fired on his convoy in Iraq was unlawful, a coroner has ruled.

The "friendly fire" incident which killed Lance Corporal Matty Hull, 25, amounted to a criminal act, he said. Andrew Walker said the 2003 death was "entirely avoidable" and L/Cpl Hull's widow said the verdict was "right". The Ministry of Defence apologised for a delay in releasing film from the US A-10 plane. The US said its probe found the death was a "tragic accident".

In delivering his verdict, Mr Walker said: "The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault. "It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal." No American witnesses gave evidence at the inquest and the coroner was critical of the failure of the US authorities to co-operate.

The US pilots should have flown lower to confirm identities before opening fire, he added.

Seems the U.S. is not very responsive or, perhaps, they just don't care about bad publicity and all.

Er, anyone seen Allan Johnston lately?

The BBC is pleaing.