Likelihood of Success

Instapundit links to the answer to the question, “What if Israelis had abducted BBC man?”

Throughout Mr Johnston’s captivity, the BBC has continually emphasised that he gave “a voice” to the Palestinian people, the implication being that he supported their cause, and should therefore be let out. One cannot imagine the equivalent being said if he had been held by Israelis.

Well, he is certainly giving a voice to the Palestinian people now. And the truth is that, although it is under horrible duress, what he says is not all that different from what the BBC says every day through the mouths of reporters who are not kidnapped and threatened, but are merely collecting their wages.

Ouch. But they don’t learn, as Charles Moore, the article’s author, makes it clear. Moral “equivalence”? We’re past that, and on the other side looking in. No one deserves it better than the BBC, but regrettably, it is not they, nor theirs, that pay the full price for what can be, at best, described as moral obtuseness — and which others describe as merely an aspect of long-held British contempt for the Jews.