It's worth bearig in mind that those labelled terrorists in the 1970s & 80s produced the peace deals in Northern Ireland. Maybe the Middle East's peace may yet be possible if Hamas can be engaged.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Alan Johnston
Excellent news through today about Alan. The interesting dilemma is that Hamas appears to have provided the context where the release could happen. Will the West negotiate?
It's worth bearig in mind that those labelled terrorists in the 1970s & 80s produced the peace deals in Northern Ireland. Maybe the Middle East's peace may yet be possible if Hamas can be engaged.
It's worth bearig in mind that those labelled terrorists in the 1970s & 80s produced the peace deals in Northern Ireland. Maybe the Middle East's peace may yet be possible if Hamas can be engaged.
I was interested in the Alan Johnston story because he was a journalist and I hope to be one but I think a lot of the coverage falls into the same category as that of Madeleine McCann - focused on for being white, british and so on whereas goodness knows how many people disappear every day without a word being mentioned. A statistic given on Channel 4 News was something like in the first month Madeleine disappeared something like 700 people under 18 went missing in the UK - hardly heard anything about them.
ReplyDeleteRegards the peace process, it's long been clear that we would have to engage the likes of Hamas and also to try and understand them and their support more, rather than simply labelling them as terrorists.
Fair comment, imagineanewworld, but I think Alan J himself said he hoped that the exceptional profile his case received would help to raise the issues for others. Sometimes someone has to symbolise the entire problem.
ReplyDeleteAlan, of course, stayed in Gaza and tried to keep non-western, non-white, non-Christian suffering in the view of the world.
Likewise, the McCann case is very tragic, but I agree that many other cases like that occur every day. I guess it says something about the editorial policies of the media.