A Palestinian group calling itself the Al Tawhid Al Jihad brigade has issued a claim that it has killed BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston. The BBC has issued a statement saying it is deeply concerned about what it is hearing. "But we stress that at this stage," it says, "it is rumour with no independent verification". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6557779.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/16/news/boycott.php British journalists call for boycott of Israeli goods By Alan Cowell Published: April 16, 2007 LONDON: Britain's biggest journalists' union, The National Union of Journalists, has criticized Israel's "military adventures" and has voted narrowly in favor of a boycott of Israeli goods. The vote followed calls by some British academics last year to ostracize their Israeli counterparts. At the annual delegates meeting of the journalists' union last Friday, a vote calling for "a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid in South Africa" was approved 66 to 54. The delegates also urged Britain and the United Nations to impose sanctions on Israel. The union has about 40,000 members, represented at the annual meeting by about 150 delegates from more than 60 branches. The ballot did not, however, make calls for a boycott of contacts with Israeli journalists similar to previous academic efforts to ostracize Israeli university teachers. The call for a boycott was initially part of a broader condemnation of what the union called Israel's "slaughter of civilians" in Gaza and "savage pre-planned attack" last year on Lebanon, but the boycott was voted on separately. The condemnation of Israeli military action in Gaza and Lebanon was approved by a wider margin. In the debate leading to the vote, some delegates argued that a call for a boycott would not help British journalists do their job in Israel. Others argued that it was not the job of a journalists' union to get so involved in such issues. The timing of the ballot was particularly delicate because a BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, has been held for more than a month in Gaza, making the boycott call seem one-sided. A Palestinian group claimed Sunday to have killed Johnston but the BBC said it was treating the report as a rumor.
I guess I agree with you, the Brits have become absolutely pathetic. Their reporters are kidnapped by the Palestinians, their sailors are kidnapped by the Iranians, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are slaughtered in Rwanda and Sudan, their own troops are occupying Iraq but the Brits in their infinite wisdom call for boycott of Israeli goods. No wonder they together with the rest of the EU become more and more irrelevant in world affairs. Not that it matters of course, foreign investment in Israel reached an all-time high of $23.7 billion in 2006 - one of the highest in the world. Israel hardly needs british investments or markets. Israel on the other side is UK's largest individual export market in the region. And on top of that UK reporters in Israel ignore boycott: Most British correspondents working in Israel and the Palestinian Authority are not members of the NUJ. One who is, Donald Macintyre of The Independent, said he did not know anything about the union's actions until he read it in the Israeli media. "The job of the NUJ is to protect journalists and not adopt political postures, right or left," Macintyre told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "It certainly won't affect my job or my professional outlook." "We are here to report on Israel as well as the Palestinians. If they [the NUJ] want to get involved in Middle East issues, they should join the brave campaign for [kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent] Alan Johnston by the brave Palestinian journalists supporting him," he said. The BBC's Jerusalem bureau chief, Simon Wilson, said Johnston's situation was far more important and pressing than the boycott call. "I have a missing journalist in Gaza," he said. " http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152819433&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull