Alan was Released!

In the extremely unlikely case that you get all your news from this site, you will be happy to learn that Alan Johnston was in fact released from captivity on July 4 after nearly four months of captivity. Since I was studying in Israel at the time and decided to get "off the grid" for a while, I did not even bring my laptop with me and took a blogging break. Now I'm back with plenty of stories and a bunch of new articles to share and review. But first let's wrap up the Alan story...

So, yes, Alan Johnston was indeed released as I predicted he would be – a little later than I thought, but released unharmed nonetheless. Apparently Hamas was so certain that this would bring them some credibility and international recognition that they paid $4 million to have him released.

I doubt that we can hope the same for Gilad Shalit who has no doubt been brutally tortured and will not see the light of day for a long time to come. Somehow the fact that he is an Israeli soldier cancels out the fact that he was on the Israeli side of the border fence when he was captured. His uniform makes his captivity acceptable in the same “respectable circles” around the world that were appalled at the capture of Alan Johnston. Of course, if he were not wearing a uniform then he would be a legitimate target by the sole virtue of his being Israeli and if that were not enough being a Jew has proven in the past to be quite a legitimate reason to target someone when in a pinch.

For all of Hamas' efforts to get some political capital out of his release, I can report that it has not really worked. Surprisingly, even the Russians and the Norwegians have seen fit to sever ties with them following their June putsch. Fortunately, they have not been able to capitalize on this “kind act” of theirs and are pretty much personae non grata in most of the world.

I was disappointed but hardly surprised that Alan Johnston did not see fit to denounce his captors after his release. Sure, he spoke of the psychological torture he endured, but he should have said clearly that what was done to him was patently unfair considering how committed he was to positively portraying the Palestinian struggle. There might have been a bit of introspection and even a sense of betrayal. Then again, this might cause cognitive dissonance and it is simply easier to continue to blame Israel for the suffering of the Palestinian people and the situation in the Gaza strip.