BRITISH REPORTERS BLAME ISRAEL FOR PALI KIDNAPPING (AND MURDER?) OF BBC REPORTER

PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS KIDNAPPED A BBC REPORTER IN GAZA. THERE ARE NOW REPORTS THAT THEY HAVE EXECUTED HIM. WHAT IS THE REACTION OF THE BRITISH PRESS TO THE KIDNAPPING AND POSSIBLE MURDER OF ONE OF THEIR OWN? CRITICISM OF THE THUGS OF GAZA? NO. FIRST, A BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL (SEE PRIOR POSTS). SECOND.... BLAMING ISRAEL!

"The Party With the Most to Gain" (BackSpin)
In the guise of respectable speculation, British journalist Alan Hart casts aspersion on Israel for Alan Johnston's disappearance:

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.

If Alan Johnston is dead, it's my hope that the BBC at executive management level will rise above its fear of offending Zionism too much and allow its reporters (Frank Gardner and Jeremy Bowen are second to none) to make a full, thorough and honest investigation.

Here's our own Top 10 List of Parties Who Might Gain From Johnston's Kidnap:

10. Rachel Corrie’s parents, who poisoned Yasser Arafat and also survived a kidnap attempt.

9. Hanif Kureishi, who wanted to boost his short story, “Weddings and Beheadings.” Although a reading on BBC Radio-4 was postponed, Kureishi’s still in the papers, accusing the Beeb of censorship.

8. Britain’s National of Union of Journalists needed to create a pretext for a three-day boycott of the PA to balance out their boycott of Israeli products.

7. Alan Johnston staged his kidnap, but don’t take our word for it.

6. The royal family knew in advance Prince William and Kate Middleton were on the rocks and foresaw a public opinion disaster. UK coverage of the royal breakup dovetailed too nicely with conveniently timed rumors of Johnston’s execution.

5. Robert Fisk. Why not? He already wrote he'd beat up himself and any other Westerner he could find.

4. French intelligence clearly gave Michael Moore advance notice of Al-Qaida’s plotting. Why wasn’t Moore in the World Trade Center filming Fahrenheit 9/11 that fateful day?

3. If (repeat, if) a professional rivalry between Alan Hart and Alan Johnston went too far, Hart himself would certainly gain.

2. Yvonne Ridley, who recently angered Australians during an Easter weekend speech. Seeking to atone for the failed gunpoint conversion of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, Ridley tried again with Johnston.

1. Desperate for cash, OJ Simpson is working on his next book, “If I Kidnapped Alan Johnston.”

An Ageless Whitewash (BackSpin)
What is The Age’s correspondent Ed O’Loughlin trying to accomplish with this snippet about the search for Alan Johnston?

No foreign journalist or aid worker has been harmed by Palestinian militants since the uprising against Israel that began in October 2000, although several have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces.

Jaime Razuri, Emilio Morenatti Steve Centanni, Olaf Wiig, Caroline Laurent, Alfred Yaghobzadeh, Yong Tae-young, Mohamed Ouathi, Dion Nissenbaum, Adam Pletts, James Bennett, Riad Ali, and Josh Hammer weren’t physically harmed, but their freedom was physically restricted for hours or days. Why does O'Loughlin whitewash their ordeals?

O’Loughlin also omits the Palestinian journalists caught in the middle of the violent Hamas-Fatah battle for PA media supremacy.