Being obvious about it

It would seem to me that, if you’re colluding with bad guys, you’d prefer that this collusion be low key — and the bad guys would prefer it to, so that it wouldn’t look as if you’re in their camp for PR purposes.  Somehow this basic fact about allegiances and publicity seems to have eluded the Palestinians.  How else to explain this from the Mideast Dispatch:

THE BBC OFFICE WAS SPARED

Wrongly believing that the British government colluded with Israel on Tuesday, Palestinian militants attacked many British targets. Among these, the offices of the British Council were burned down, and an HSBC bank was ransacked. In their usual intimidatory way, they also targeted journalists, briefly seizing two French reporters and a South Korean one. Armed gunmen also raided the offices of the German TV station ARD, shooting in the air. But what is interesting is that the BBC is housed in the same building as ARD in Gaza, and yet the Palestinian militant groups – who are much better organized and more sophisticated in their choice of targets than some in the media would have us believe – deliberately did not enter the BBC offices.

It seems that even on a day of widespread attacks on western targets in Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinian gunmen know who their friends are.

The BBC has long been the best friend that radicals in the Middle East have ever had, but need they make it so obvious?

Talking to Technorati: BBC, Palestinians, Prison raid