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During a 40 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use simple language, avoiding jargon), our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, has always known that complicated issues must be made easy to understand yet could be HUGELY important, and this is underlined by new information about the attempts now underway to resolve the most complex problem of all – the HUNDREDS of hostages taken by Hamas, as Israel conducts a war with them after the massacre of 1400 of its citizens.
Earlier Phil has described how he was helped to break into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and making clear that the‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge of history and teaching the subject is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
He has disclosed as well why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, how the coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown played havoc with media schedules, and the importance of the hugely lower average age of some political leaders compared with when he started reporting.
After disclosing how I have always tried to boil down into simple language the finances of the economy, because they affect EVERYONE, comes new information about the most difficult issue of all which appears impossible to make simple – the hostage crisis for Israel in Gaza.
The Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has now declared freeing the hostages is “a priority” after refusing even to meet their families for three weeks after Hamas attacked on October 7.
Israeli officials have said in all, they believe that 241 people were taken hostage during the attack.
However 10 Americans remain unaccounted for, “some significant number” of which are hostages, according to the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
It now seems that the USA is passing drone footage to Israeli authorities about where the hostages may be being kept, and intensive negotiations are underway with Hamas (via Arab states like Qatar).
They may have also employed (possibly on a ‘Pro Bono’ basis), the experienced hostage negotiator, David Meidan, who successfully arranged for the freeing by Hamas of the young Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in 2011, or perhaps he is offering his advice free of charge.
There is enormous pressure on the Israeli Government from the families of those taken hostage to ensure the safety of their loved ones.
Yet they know, and it may be unpalatable for the public as well as for Mr Netanyahu, that a high price might have to be paid.
The hostages must be brought home “at all costs…even if Israel must pay a heavy and painful price of opening its prisons and releasing all the 6,000 Palestinian terrorists”, Mr Meidan has proclaimed.
All of this may seem to be the result of a “quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing”, as the UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 called the conflict between Nazi Germany and Czechoslovakia.
But in fact it enormously affects Mrs Jones in Rhyl.
Israel is the UK’s ally and Rishi Sunak has pledged to support them, so we could be drawn into the conflict.
If the hostage negotiations fail, then extremists could be emboldened to take similar awful measures on the streets of a Welsh city.
Heaven forbid…
Details of Phil’s astonishing decades-long journalistic career (when he always tried to simplify complicated issues), as he was gripped by the incurable neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in an important book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now.
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – Phil looks at how a large gap appears to be opening up between the two biggest political parties in America, over arms for both Ukraine and Israel.
