Who would those hostages in Gaza be? Do you mean the actual residents? Why are they hostages? Is anyone preventing them from leaving? They have a perfectly viable border crossing with Egypt.

What's that you say? Egypt doesn't want them? They don't want them any more than Israel? Well, call the UN I say. Perhaps a resolution or two against Egypt might help them change their minds.

UN Resolution 194

11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;



Israel signed this in 1948 - the 'earliest possible date' seems to be long overdue

"refugees wishing to (...) live at peace with their neighbours "

Ah should be Aye. As in 'Aye, right'.

"refugees wishing to (...) live at peace with their neighbours "

So why won't Israel allow any Palestinians to return to their homes regardless of their politics ? All the forcablly seized property too expensive to give up ? Scared of becoming a minority ? Afraid that the apartheid wall of Jericho would be breached ?

Aren't you ashamed to talk of living in peace with your neighbours ? Isn't Lebanon a neighbour ? If my neighbour admitted dropping a million cluster bombs in my back garden then I wouldn't consider them peaceful, I would call the law - but of course the immoral Jewish state fears no law, not even the law of G-d.


To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

"ank" the zionist asks:

"Who would those hostages in Gaza be? Do you mean the actual residents? Why are they hostages? Is anyone preventing them from leaving? They have a perfectly viable border crossing with Egypt."

Hmm, well lets see:

"Gaza Strip

IOF have imposed a strict siege on the Gaza Strip. They have closed its border crossings as a form of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians.

IOF have closed Rafah International Crossing Point since 25 June 2006, even though they do not directly control it. During the reporting period, the crossing point was reopened on 5 and 10 2007, and hundreds of Palestinians were able to travel through it. IOF have partially reopened commercial crossings, especially al-Mentar (Karni) crossing, but many goods and medical supplies have been lacked in markets in the Gaza Strip. IOF have also continued to close Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have been prevented from traveling through this crossing. IOF have allowed international workers to pass through the crossing. With this closure, only few Palestinian patients have been able to travel to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank. In addition, IOF have continued to prevent Palestinian fishermen from fishing for more than 9 months. During the reporting period, 3 Palestinian fishermen were wounded when IOF gunboats fired at their boat. "

Now someone has to be lying, right?

"ank" says that the borders are "perfectly viable" and the Palestine News network says they've been open for a handful of days since June 2006.

Well, Alan Johnston's own paper doesn't back ank up.

"RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Raouf Ziara's love life is in Israel's hands.

When Ziara, a 36-year-old officer in the Palestinian security forces, crossed from Gaza to Egypt in late March to visit his Egyptian wife, he had spent more than a month repeatedly trying to get through a border station that Israel only rarely allows to open.

Now in Cairo, Ziara doesn't know when he'll be able to return. But he knows he'll be doing it alone since Israel has frozen immigration to Gaza, which is why his wife is stuck in Egypt and can't join him.

Despite its withdrawal from Gaza in September 2005, Israel still exerts considerable control over the lives of the 1.4 million Palestinians there by controlling access.

The movement of crops crucial to farmers' livelihoods, the decision on when residents of the coastal strip can leave and when they can come back, permission for a foreign-born spouse to move to Gaza - it's all still up to Israel.

Yet Israel says it no longer occupies Gaza because it pulled out its soldiers and settlers. Under international law, Israel argues, it has no obligations to Gaza's residents but on its own initiative will try to keep supplies flowing to the crowded, poverty-stricken territory to avert a humanitarian crisis."
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6539980,00.html

Even the Jerusalem Post proves him to be a dishonest troll:

"According to statistics obtained by the Post, since June 25, 2006 - the same day Cpl. Gilad Schalit was abducted by Hamas gunmen outside Gaza - the crossing has been closed 79 percent of the time, and open just 57 days. Just over 109,000 people have passed through Rafah during that period.

Had the crossing not been closed, an estimated 480,000 people would have passed through the crossing, Gaza's only gateway to the outside world."
 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879172729&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

after that ank just gets stupid:

"What's that you say? Egypt doesn't want them? They don't want them any more than Israel? Well, call the UN I say. Perhaps a resolution or two against Egypt might help them change their minds."

Israel, which stole their land is prevennting the people of gaza from travelling out, and Egypt didn't steal the Palestinian's land. Every day Israel steals a little more.

Look,
journalists get kidnapped all over the world, but when one british journalist gets kidnapped, when one white european gets kidnapped, then it is a big deal....Alan works for the bbc which is ultimately the voice of the british imperialist state; stop kidding yourselves otherwise. he is a propagandist for the british state...

Look,
journalists get kidnapped all over the world, but when one british journalist gets kidnapped, when one white european gets kidnapped, then it is a big deal....Alan works for the bbc which is ultimately the voice of the british imperialist state; stop kidding yourselves otherwise. he is a propagandist for the british state...

-Alan is a voice of british imperialism
A softer voice than most then. A BBC man prepared to live in Gaza. Not many mainstream western journalists do, especially for such a right-wing employer.

-Look, journalists get kidnapped all over the world, but when one british journalist gets kidnapped, when one white european gets kidnapped, then it is a big deal...

No, mostly they get killed straightaway. Alan is lucky he has been held hostage by people who seem to care for him as much as their own people. Which is the norm in Palestine.of course.

-Alan works for the bbc which is ultimately the voice of the british imperialist state;
True:, I suspect that is the true reason he was held hostage.

-stop kidding yourselves otherwise. he is a propagandist for the british state...
No, he is a pawn who doesn't realise it. It is not his fault his better reports don't get published. Wouldn't you prefer a diplomat-spy was captured in his place ? Or his editor at the BBC offered themselves as a hostage swap ? I think journalists should be held accountable for their crimes, but only for their crimes - and we have all admitted his only crime is to work for an employer that ignores his journalism and forces him to 'self censor'.

-screw alan
Okay, screw him, but let him go free afterwards. Why would anyone want to screw him ? He is a bald old geezer, and his parents are older and uglier. They are as human as any Palestinian family though. I hope you don't mean kill him.

The true and reliable friends of Palestine want Alan released, even if what you say is correct, that the true and reliable enemies of Palestine want him held hostage or killed to fuel more anti-palestinian news stories . So which side are you on ? If you want to punish the BBC for it's biased coverage of the plight of Palestine, then go for the proper targets.

Holding a journlist seems almost as weak as holding a woman, even less rational. If you are nothing to do with the hostage-takers, then shut up, post somewhere else or reflect for a minute. If you are, then I'd swap places with Alan.

So alan is soft and nice and lives in gaza etc... so what? he is the voice of the british state. Alan is not an idiot and chose freely to work for the bbc in gaza. Furthermore, whether the bbc,cnn etc put out good stories about the palestinians or not is not really so important; Israel will be defeated militarily if at all, frankly the public opionion of the british is of no great importance; it could not stop the afghan and iraq wars; the bbc needs people like alan to show that it is really 'democratic' and allows different points of view thus reinforcing the false belief that there is 'free speech' in the west and the bbc promotes 'free speech and democracy' . I am sorry alan has been kidnapped, but i do not care at all about his parents or family; many families suffer and most are not rich and live in britain. He is the voice of british imperialism. The campaign to free him is a waste of time, as it is a campaign by the bbc, and it will be used against the palestinians.

"the bbc needs people like alan to show that it is really 'democratic' and allows different points of view thus reinforcing the false belief that there is 'free speech' in the west and the bbc promotes 'free speech and democracy' ."

Good point.

"I am sorry alan has been kidnapped, but i do not care at all about his parents or family; many families suffer and most are not rich and live in britain."

Living in britain isn't all it is cracked up to be by the BBC. Grief strikes down the rich too, just less often. Sympathy shouldn't have borders.

"He is the voice of british imperialism."

Tony Bliar is that voice.

"The campaign to free him is a waste of time, as it is a campaign by the bbc, and it will be used against the palestinians."

True. Which is what motivated me to try a cartoon. I also think it would be a good idea to subvert the posters about Johnston, but you are up against the BBC who are past masters at propaganda. If you subvert them with messages about not caring for Alan, passersby may stop caring for the Palestinians. the BBC will smear the Palestinian cause. It shouldn't be an either/or issue. The BBC have spent a lot of money on this campaign for this one hostage after ignoring the plight of Palestine. I can see why you are bitter about that, but be smart too, use their campaign not against Alan but to highlight the plight of everyone in Gaza. Use your opponents strength against them. Remember a lot of people in Palestine genuinely don't want any foriegn journalists taken hostage, they are sick of 'bad press' when they are the real victims.

Either way, not a good night for subverting posters after all.


GAZA (Reuters) - The BBC expressed deep concern at an e-mail on Sunday saying its missing correspondent in Gaza had been killed by Islamist kidnappers but the British broadcaster and Palestinian officials said the claim was not verified.

"We are deeply concerned about what we are hearing -- but we stress, at this stage, it is rumour with no independent verification," the BBC said in a statement after the claim from a previously unknown group that journalist Alan Johnston had been killed.

Britain's Foreign Office said it was urgently checking the situation.

One of the few Western reporters based in the troubled territory, Johnston, who is British, has not been heard from since his car was found abandoned on March 12. He has now been missing for longer than any of the several foreigners kidnapped in Gaza in the past year.

Palestinian Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi told reporters in Gaza: "I have been in contact with all the security chiefs since I heard the information ... There is no information to confirm the killing of the journalist Johnston."

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office in London said: "We are aware of the reports and are urgently looking into them."

The e-mail sent to media organisations on Sunday was issued in the name of the Tawhid and Jihad Brigades, a group not known hitherto in Gaza but whose name is similar to that used by movements elsewhere affiliated to al Qaeda Islamists.

It said it would later release a video of Johnston's killing and blamed the British and Palestinian governments for failing to meet demands that prisoners be freed from Israeli jails. No such demand has been made publicly since Johnston disappeared.

Qawasmi said: "At the Interior Ministry we have not received any demands of any kind, whether for ransom or anything else. No party has said it is holding the journalist."

A senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Abbas was following the issue personally: "We have heard rumours. We hope he will be released alive and in good health," Saeb Erekat told reporters. "Every effort is being exerted to avoid a disaster."

On Thursday, a month after Johnston's disappearance, the BBC said Abbas had told it he had evidence the reporter was well.

- Nidal al-Mughrabi. Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem

Kate Burton writing from Cairo, Egypt, Live from Palestine, 15 April 2007

I feel helpless. We are all tired. At this point I don't know what to say, and what I will say cannot do justice to the respect I hold for Alan Johnston, and for the people of Gaza for that matter. I am much tempted to say the usual things: his kidnapping is no good for the cause, that Alan doesn't deserve this ... I know many people have said as much but at the end of the day it is a question of politics, or other interests, and I feel helpless.

What I really want, obviously, is for Alan to be released. One month is an unbearable amount of time in such circumstances and I honestly cannot imagine how much the boredom and solitude might be affecting him, despite his strength of character, his calm nature and sharp mind. To those people who are waiting, hoping, and expecting for Alan's release every day, however, I want to convey a brief detail of what I went through when kidnapped in Gaza. I can in no way imply that Alan is going through the same: he has been held for much longer and is alone. I can only say that beyond the actual denial of my freedom those who held me treated me and my parents with the utmost respect, and gave us everything we needed in an attempt to maintain our physical strength as well as our morale and psychological wellbeing. Our kidnappers constantly repeated the fact that the respect I had earned in the Gaza community deserved the same respect from them towards us. I am certain that the same is true for Alan, who is held in enormously high esteem in all the occupied Palestinian territories and the world -- evident from the sentiments of anger, desperation and sadness shown by journalists and countless solidarity groups worldwide since he was kidnapped.

To those who are holding Alan Johnston:

I guess you are the only people I really want to talk to, because I know that everyone else apart from you already wants what I want. I am personally calling on you to listen: I want to remind you who you are: you have families, children, brothers, sisters, people who are close to you, just like Alan is dear to us all. I know the kind of place in which you are holding him, the boredom you are feeling, the anger and frustration you are going through. I know you are watching the TV and following the news and you know now how much Alan means to the people of Gaza and of Palestine; you know how much he is respected and how much he has done for the Palestinians during his three years in Gaza. When no one else could cover the reality of what is going on in your world, Alan was there, describing the sonic booms after the disengagement, the electricity shortages after the power plant was hit, the constant and never-ending closures that affect every part of your lives, the massacres, the medical patients suffering at Rafah crossing. He was telling your entire story to the world, piece by piece, and now there is no one left to tell it. I know what your answer will be: and what good has it done? You know it has done so much -- it has provoked increased outcries against the constant human rights violations you face and has gained increased support for an end to the occupation. The results are always slow but you know they are results nonetheless. That support that Alan has built, for your people, for the Palestinians, for your brothers, sisters, daughters and sons, is the same support you are destroying more every day that goes by with him in captivity.

If you continue targeting foreigners such as Alan Johnston I fear you are doing the same as what Israel has done by targeting Tom Hurndall, Rachel Corrie and many others. You are pushing away from Gaza those who want to help you get out of the situation your people have been suffering for decades. You are isolating yourselves, and your people. And I do not believe this is what you want and it is not who you are. During the time I was kidnapped, I realized that those who had kidnapped me wanted what I wanted for their people -- freedom, economic opportunities, an end to corruption and power imbalances, and an end to the occupation -- but they were trying to achieve it in the wrong way and it was clear that in reality they knew that.

I am asking you now to maintain some self-respect, let down your barriers and let Alan go, and take the opportunity following his release to give your voice afterwards, when people will want to listen. It is the only way. I plead you, for the Palestinian people, for your families, for Alan, for me. It is well known in Gaza the expression: Min a'shar il qawm arba'in yom sar minhum (One who lives forty days among a people becomes one of them). Alan is one of you a thousand times over. We are tired. Khalas.

Kate Burton, former human rights officer with Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, is a friend of Alan Johnston and also a British citizen. She was kidnapped in Gaza in 2005 and held for 58 hours. Alan covered her story for three days.

yes israel dropped thousands of cluster bombs on southern lebenon, and hizbullah did the same to northern israel, a point he probably just forgot. he also forgot to mention the suicide bombers and also the katusha rockets oh yeah, and those scuds in the 80s. oh well lets just forget those shall we.

if we really want to see peace then we shouldnt aim towards two racist states next to each other but one fully intergrated society. like the one choamsky wants.

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war...

The cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.

Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war...

It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.

International law forbids the use of weapons that cause "excessive injury and unnecessary suffering", and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.

The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.

So the BBC is a right wing employer? Who are you people, you clearly have no idea about the corporation. In fact it is on balance quite left wing.

And the BBC is the voice of the British Imperialist state? What Imperialist state? Clearly you people have never been there and haven't a clue what you're talking about.

All media organisations in some ways reflect the biases of the country's they're based in, but the BBC does a better job than many of avoiding it, even if it doesn't do it all the time.

>So the BBC is a right wing employer?
Duh. Unless you consider Nulab left wing.

>Who are you people, you clearly have no idea about the corporation. In fact it is on balance quite left wing.
So why did it promote the Iraq war more than any other news channel ? And why did it sack Andrew Gilligan for breaking a factual story the NuLab spinmiesters disapproved of ?

>And the BBC is the voice of the British Imperialist state? What Imperialist state?
The one with the Chagos Isles. the one with the Malvinas. etc. The one who until it's decline the sun never set on - until it did.

>Clearly you people have never been there and haven't a clue what you're talking about.
The UK ? If only. The BBC ? Thankfully.

>All media organisations in some ways reflect the biases of the country's they're based in, but the BBC does a better job than many of avoiding it, even if it doesn't do it all the time.
No, they don't and independent university research shows the BBC is the most biased of all the major news channels broadcasting in the UK. Of course, with your views you probably get published on 'Have your say' - intelligent critism of either the corportations reporting or of the state is not accepted.

That is still no reason to kidnap reporters though it may be a reason to kidnap the board of govenors.