Here is a tale of two hostages, one British, one German: both attractive, highly educated, high-powered modern European women. Both are Arabic-speaking and Islamophile, both on self-appointed missions to “help” the Palestinians and the Iraqis respectively. Both were initially treated as heroines by the British and German media; both ended by colluding with their kidnappers, and both gave Islamism a propaganda coup.

Kate Burton, the British hostage, had worked in Gaza for the United Nations. A few months ago she attached herself to al Mezan, a Palestinian “human rights” organization that seems to devote most of its energy to denouncing Israel, while doing nothing to counteract the self-inflicted evils of Palestinian society.

Ms. Burton was not a field worker but a fundraiser for al Mezan. Such groups are largely Western-financed and wholly parasitical on Western guilt. That guilt complex in turn is fed by institutions such as London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, or SOAS, where Ms. Burton studied. Despite its high academic reputation in the past – the greatest living Middle Eastern historian, Bernard Lewis, taught there many years ago – SOAS has lately become a source of anti-Americanism, academic boycotts of Israel and support for jihad.

Ms. Burton was kidnapped with her elderly parents in December, while on a tour of Gaza. Western anti-Zionists can now gloat over wrecked former Israeli settlements. But Ms. Burton risked her own and her parents’ lives to gratify her schadenfreude: Several visitors have been kidnapped in Gaza in the last year.

The kidnappers held the Burtons for only four days, but in a quiet holiday period the story led the British news agenda. This gave various terrorist groups, including Hamas, an opportunity to pose as moderates by calling for their release. Public figures in Britain appealed on behalf of the Burtons, prayer vigils were held and great emphasis was laid on the fact that Ms. Burton was a committed pro-Palestinian activist.

The shadowy group holding the Burtons, the Brigades of the Mujahidin, demanded that Britain and the European Union put pressure on Israel over various grievances. No ransom seems to have been demanded or paid, but the kidnappers apparently received assurances that a protest would be lodged about the “no-go” zone along the Gaza border. This is designed to protect Israelis against the terrorist incursions, which still continue and are likely to increase, assuming that Hamas does well in yesterday’s Palestinian election.

No pressure, on the other hand, was exerted by the Europeans on the Palestinian Authority to arrest the culprits. Gaza is a terrorist fiefdom in which nobody expects the rule of law to be enforced – least of all since the Israelis washed their hands of the place.

Once Ms. Burton was released, she praised her kidnappers for being “kind,” adding that they had “a sensitive side.” She would return to Gaza as soon as possible. The British Foreign Office has apparently made no objection to Ms. Burton’s insouciant attitude, but many people were irritated to find their prayers and good offices exploited by a woman who made common cause with the culprits.

The case of Susanne Osthoff, the German archaeologist who was kidnapped in Iraq last November and held for about three weeks, is even more disturbing. Ms. Osthoff, who had lived in Iraq for many years, appeared in a video while she was in captivity, blindfolded, and flanked by armed terrorists. She claimed that her captors were working for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Ms. Osthoff was presented by the German media as an intrepid guardian of Iraq’s archaeological heritage against tomb-raiders; the fact that she was a critic of the United States helped to make her into a cause celebre. A nationwide campaign for her release was launched, with torchlit vigils and appeals from across the entire political spectrum, including Muslim leaders. The former chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, was particularly vociferous.

Faced with this hullabaloo, the new coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel panicked. A ransom, believed to be as much as $5 million, was paid, thereby rewarding blackmail and offering an incentive for future abductions.

But the kidnappers wanted more – and they got it. One of the most notorious terrorists in German custody, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, was given early release from his life sentence and flown immediately to his native Labanon. This broke solemn undertakings given to the United States after Hamadi was convicted of the murder of U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in 1985 during the hijacking of a TWA airliner by Hezbollah. This act of appeasement has set a disgraceful precedent and leaves an indelible stain on the reputation of Ms. Merkel and the honor of the German Federal Republic.

While Ms. Osthoff was taking a shower at the German embassy in Baghdad after her release, intelligence officers found that she was secretly carrying “several thousand dollars” concealed in her clothes. The serial numbers on the banknotes matched those on the ransom money. Despite her claims that the money was compensation for cash that the kidnappers had taken from her, the impression remained that the “victim” seemed to have a share of the loot.

Worse was to come. Ms. Osthoff let it be known that she would return to Iraq as soon as possible and failed to thank her benefactors. Then she appeared on al-Jazeera, dressed as a fundamentalist Muslim in a burka, with only her eyes visible, expressing sympathy for her kidnappers’ aims. Either Ms. Osthoff had become a fanatic or she had duped everybody. Her credibility has collapsed.

For Ms. Merkel, the Osthoff affair has been a disaster. Germany’s first female leader has emerged from the first serious test of her resolve looking not only cowardly but also naive and gullible. When I last saw her in London, before her election, she was at pains to insist that she was not “the German Frau Thatcher.”

We can now see just what Ms. Merkel meant by that. Margaret Thatcher always refused to negotiate with terrorists or to give them what she called “the oxygen of publicity.” Her decision to storm the Libyan embassy in London in 1984, after gunmen inside shot demonstrators and killed a policewoman, proved that she meant it.

As for the hostages who identify with their kidnappers: This is not only a psychological phenomenon (the “Stockholm syndrome”), but a political one, too. Europe is being held hostage by the Islamists in its midst. If our leaders are not yet ready to stand up to them, the women of Europe might as well buy their burkas now.