Posted on 09/27/2004 10:39:03 PM PDT by familyop
Israel and the Palestinian Authority were engaged in intensive efforts Monday night to bring about the release of an Israeli Druze employee of CNN who was kidnapped by armed Palestinians in Gaza on Monday.
The kidnapping occurred at approximately 6:30 P.M., just outside CNN's offices in Gaza City. Riad Ali, who works for the television station as a producer and translator, was standing and chatting with two other employees, a reporter and a cameraman, both American. According to the reporter, Ben Wedeman, a white Peugeot stopped nearby and five armed Palestinians, all in their twenties, jumped out. Some carried pistols, and the others, Kalashnikov rifles. They made no attempt to conceal their faces, and some had shaven heads.
One of the men approached, holding a pistol, and asked: "Which of you is Riad?" When Ali identified himself, the man ordered him into the car at gunpoint and the car took off.
As of last night, it was still not clear which organization had perpetrated the kidnapping. At first, the rumor mill fingered Hamas, but later, Palestinian sources said that they thought it was probably a smaller organization. Hamas later denounced the kidnapping.
Israeli security sources said that they have no information on Ali's whereabouts and no preparations are underway for a military rescue attempt. They said they expect the affair to be resolved at the diplomatic level, predicting that the PA would work hard to effect Ali's release, as the kidnapping of a CNN journalist embarrasses it.
The defense establishment periodically receives warnings about plans to kidnap Israeli citizens in Gaza, including journalists, and as a result, Israeli journalists were briefly forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip last year. In response to Ali's kidnapping, the Israel Defense Forces decided to reinstate this ban.
Ali, in his thirties, is one of the relatively few Druze who never served in the IDF. According to Gil Sedan, a Channel 1 reporter who used to work with him and has remained friends, Ali "defined himself first of all as an Arab nationalist, and only afterward as a Druze ... He was certainly not identified with the Israeli establishment." Therefore, "it's hard for me to believe that someone wants to settle accounts with him over something."
On Monday night, Ali's family asked MK Mohammed Barakeh, head of the Hadash Party, to help win his release. Barakeh contacted PA Chairman Yasser Arafat on the family's behalf and also appealed to various Palestinian terrorist organizations, saying that the kidnapping "does not help the Palestinian cause."
CNN also called on the kidnappers to release Ali. The Foreign Journalists Association in Israel condemned the kidnapping and urged all sides to respect the freedom of journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ali began his television career in 1998 with Channel 1's "Arabesque" program. Two years later, he was promoted to the channel's daily news magazine. In this capacity, he prepared many reports on the territories, particularly Gaza, and often interviewed masked militants.
According to his former boss, Rafik Halaby, his reports "often angered the right and the director-general [of the Israel Broadcasting Authority] because he presented the Palestinian side."
Two years ago, Ali was fired, apparently due to differences with the IBA's management, and a year ago, he started working for CNN as a producer in Gaza.
Ali lives with his wife and three children in the Druze village of Ma'ar in northern Israel. Before starting his television career, he served as the leader of a dialogue group in the Jewish-Arab school Neveh Shalom.
The Druze are very loyal Israeli citizens.
Thank you.
Won't CNN broadcast the beheading? I know Dan Rather would want to break the story if it were a CBS reporter.
Israeli media quotes sources in Jerusalem saying that Arafat knows where he is and could order him to be released. Also, security sources in Israel believe it was either Hamas or Islamic Jihad executing the kidnapping.
Will this be the start of a new trend? Beheadings in Gaza and the West Bank?
I don't know. ...hope not.
But there is a way to scare a lot of US Democrats over to our side, given their fears and what could happen in our USA if Kerry prevails--new lyrics for "Old McDonald" (you know: "had a farm?").
...here a head, there a head, everywhere a head, head,...!
When I think of Old mcDonald and Kerry I get, "here a dork there a dork, everywhere a dork dork..."
>>According to his former boss, Rafik Halaby, his reports "often angered the right and the director-general [of the Israel Broadcasting Authority] because he presented the Palestinian side." <<
Well apparently he wasn't. Read the article.
He'll be returned tomorrow, because the Palestenians will realise their mistake. They kidnapped someone that was on their side.
You are also right about the mistake being made by the terrorists. Maybe that's why he was released, though I support the notion Arafat simply called up his buddies and told them to stop it as he had other interests.
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