The Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens wonders why the BBC allowed Alan Johnston to stay in Gaza long after it was no longer safe for foreign journalists. He suggests Johnston’s usefulness to the Palestinians came to an end as chaos laid bare uglier truths that don’t fit into the Beeb’s world view:
Still, whatever the benefits of staying on the right side of the Palestinian powers-that-be, they have begun to wane. For years, the BBC had invariably covered Palestinian affairs within the context of Israel’s occupation–the core truth from which all manifestations of conflict supposedly derived. Developments within Gaza following Israel’s withdrawal showed the hollowness of that analysis. Domestic Palestinian politics, it turned out, were shot through with their own discontents, contradictions and divisions, not just between Hamas and Fatah but between scores of clans, gangs, factions and personalities. Opposition to Israel helped in some ways to mute this reality, but it could not suppress it….
Later, the BBC might ask itself whether its own failures of prudence and judgment put its reporter’s life in jeopardy.
