What's behind the Alan Johnston video?

Caution: this is entirely my speculation, based on joining dots between some of the news stories about the UK's actions on Alan Johnston.

So here we have a video posted of Alan Johnston, the kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent. `This is after the man has been missing for 81 days, by far the longest period of any of the many previous kidnaps of journalists by Gaza's assorted terror groups.

After all this time, why is this evidence that he was alive when it was made only being posted now?

It's interesting that in the BBC Radio 4 news reports I heard of it when it was first announced earlier this morning, it referred to the message that he spoke centring on the need to lift the economic "siege" of Gaza (the BBC newsreader's words) imposed by the sanctions from the USA and UK.

Actually, the central message Alan Johnston is made to read out in the video is this:

My captors say that my release is subject to the following...

[The video then plays an audio message from an unidentified man speaking in Arabic.]

We want Britain to free our prisoners and we specify Sheikh Abu Qatada al-Filistini, and at this position we won't forget our prisoners in the other infidel states and we say to them, free our prisoners or we will deal with you the same.

We don't specify a state without the others. And we say if you want the ransom to free them we will give you to the last piece of gold as the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us to do.

I've now been listening to the radio 4 news reports throughout the afternoon, and almost without exception they play up the story that the video (and therefore the "grievances" centre on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Authority territory. This section of the video was played in almost every news bulletin:

In three years here in the Palestinian territories, I've witnessed the huge suffering of the Palestinian people.

And my message is that their suffering is continuing, and that it is unacceptable.

Every day there are Palestinians arrested, imprisoned for no reason. People are killed on a daily basis.

The economic suffering is terrible, especially here in Gaza where there's an Israeli [audio jumps] absolute despair after nearly 40 years of Israeli occupation which has been supported by the West.

What none of the BBC's radio bulletins have relayed is this, which immediately follows:

The situation in Iraq is even worse, we see every day maybe 100 or more Iraqis being killed, in the violence there which followed the failed invasion of Iraq by America and Britain.

Ordinary people who are losing everything and can't live their lives properly. Because of not just the violence, but the shortage of everything they need for normal lives, for bringing up their children.

Errr... Afghanistan, the situation again terrible.

You see on your television screens ordinary people [audio jumps] suffering as the armies of America and B... [audio jumps] America attack [audio jumps] attack.

In all this, we can see the British government endlessly working to occupy, err, the Muslim lands, against the will of the people in those places.

From history, the British worked to bring about the state of Israel, which is the cause of all the suffering of the Israeli... of the Palestinian people, and we, the British, are completely to blame, along with the Americans, for the situation in Iraq, and the British are the main force in Afghanistan, causing all the trouble to ordinary, simple Afghans who simply want to live.

The BBC's major radio 4 afternoon news programme, PM, even featured former hostage Terry Waite saying he sympathized with the kidnappers' message about the Israeli occupation, and this above all was the one thing they needed to attend to.

How convenient of the BBC and the speaker it features to blame Israel and see it as holding the key to Johnston's release when you only have to look at the video transcript to see the inconvenient pointing to the greater blame of ...the British and the demand to release an Al Qaeda terror lynchpin currently banged up in a UK jail awaiting extradition to Jordan

Which brings us to the question of why this video was released now, and what exactly lies behind it.

It seems to me to be too much of a coincidence that in the last week a senior Hamas spokesman, Dr Ghazi Hamad has been in the UK, ostensibly on a "private visit" to participate in the Guardian-sponsored Hay on Wye Literary Festival, also being broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

And, given little press coverage is the fact that he has also been involved in talks in the Foreign Office related to their attempts to get Alan Johnston freed. So last weekend he actually met with a Foreign Office civil servant to discuss the release of Johnston.

Today's "Jewish Chronicle' (subscription only site) reports:

Dr Hamad, who is considered a moderate, had met Mr Johnston and claimed to have made contact with his kidnappers.

This is an example of what this moderate said last year:

More recently Hamad, serving as a spokesman for Hamas, has said of Israel (in response to the Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident), "Israel should be wiped from the face of the Earth. It is an animal state that recognises no human worth. It is a cancer that should be eradicated."

I think what we're seeing here is the visible tip of a negotiation process. I think the video was shown to provide proof that Johnston was alive prior to some agreed concessions or quid pro quo from the UK government.

If that's what's happening, will we find that Abu Qatada suddenly gets an appeal upheld and gets released? Or will he somehow succeed in getting extradition to Jordan turned down?

One thing's for sure. The BBC won't be telling us what's really going on.

Comments

[Huldah]

Thanks for this, Judy.

If proof were needed of the lies that the BBC spins where Israel is concerned, this is it.

I am ashamed to be part of its financing.

[Jeremy Jacobs]

Isn't it about time British Jews stopped paying their licence fee?

[Inna]

I love the latest on bbc.co.uk. Apparently ALL Palestinian factions are united on Johnston. That's the headline. I couldn't believe my eyes either:

Palestinians 'united' on Johnston
A senior Palestinian figure has said all factions are united in condemning the abduction of the BBC's Gaza correspondent, Alan Johnston.

This isn't even spin; it's an outright lie. If all Palestinian factions were united on Johnston, Johnston would be having a cup of tea in the UK.

Regards,

Inna

[Inna]

Oh sorry--and the link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6714417.stm

[Rob]

I don't see a great deal of difference between what Johnston was saying on the video and what he regularly reported from Gaza.

I'm sorry for him and his family and sincerely hope he gets home safe: but there's a saying - "When you sup with the devil take a long spoon".

[Hip Gnosis]

Nothing to be found on the BBC News website regarding the following items, either:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/03/africa/ME-GEN-Palestinians-Broadcasters-Threatened.php

http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1468#
(Watch the whole thing; wait until you get to this bit:
Boys: Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah. Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah. Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah. Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah. Who is your role model? The Prophet. Who is your role model? The Prophet. What is your path? Jihad. What is your path? Jihad. What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah. What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah.)

[szeni]

Like Rob, I thought that teh BBC can safely out-source their news service to 'the army of Islam'; Mr Johnston's new 'editors' in Gaza are at least as good as the BBC at anti-Israeli propaganda