The Palestinians finally pulled off a coup
They don’t have a good track record for accomplishing noble missions, but the Palestinian authorities worked with whatever international help they had and secured the release of newsmen Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig. I’ve been following this closely and with concern since their kidnapping two weeks ago for at least a couple of reasons.
I’m a long time journalist, formerly in the MSM, still covering international news. And I made my second visit to the Middle East last Christmas and talked with people on both sides of Jersualem’s wall to learn their stories. My approach to this very tense, political conflict in that region is centered on the human story at the heart it all.
I interviewed an Israeli TV camera crew, an Israeli soldier and two Jordanians. I spoke privately with Palestinians in Bethlehem about their stories. Israel is very successful at getting their story out, and Jordan is working hard on building its image and relationship with the Western world. There are many important religious and historical sites in Jordan that should attract busloads of tourists, as well as the well-known ones in Israel.
But the Palestinians are not well organized, if at all, and not equipped to get their story out. There’s a good one behind the ugly ones of terrorism and violence. On their release today, here’s what the newsmen had to say about the Palestinian story:
“I just hope this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover this story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful, kind-hearted loving people who the world needs to know more about,” said Centanni at a brief news conference.
Wiig echoed those remarks. “That would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestine and especially for the people of Gaza. Your story doesn’t get very well told because it is difficult to work here and anything that — any little discouragement — an incident like this could give a network an excuse not to be here and that would be a great tragedy for the people of Gaza,” he said.
That’s what I thought about when these two newsmen were snatched off the streets by kidnappers from a group no one had ever heard of before. This was very bad not only for international journalists, but also for Palestinians. The kidnappers demanded a release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for these two newsmen. Terrible move, and one that was condemned sharply even in the local environment.
Pressure had mounted from Palestinians for the kidnappers to release the journalists.
A Palestinian prisoners’ rights group said that even Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails asked the kidnappers to release the journalists immediately and unconditionally.
Finally, they have, thanks be to God.
In the middle of the recent war in the Middle East and events like this one, Arab Christians are getting caught, and overlooked. They are fleeing the Holy Land in great numbers, and the exodus is threatening the very presence of Christians in the land where Christ was born.
To get a greater sense of the story behind the story, the people behind the headlines and out of sight of the cameras, and the Christians in a region where people tend to think only in terms of Jewish vs. Muslim hostilities, go here, here and here.
