Neighbors Didn't Stop Hamas for Fear of Being Labeled Spies

This jumped out at me in a New York Times article posted tonight:

Shireen Shihab, 30, a resident of Gaza City, said Monday that she had seen Hamas fighters firing rockets toward Israel from a site two blocks away from her home. She said she and others could not express any opposition for fear of being labeled spies.

We read something similar in a New York Times story from Jan 3 from Salah Abu Rafia, a man accompanying wounded relatives to Shifa hospital:

He said that Hamas fighters had been in the area, but that he had been afraid to tell them to go away.

But Shireen Shihab is more specific. She helps us understand that to complain could lead to being labeled a spy. And we know that would be a death sentence, as we learned here. So the choice is to complain to Hamas fighters who are shooting rockets from your neighborhood and face certain death, or let them continue and face the possibility of injury or death.

I also want to look at one sentence in the middle of this latest article and juxtapose it with one at the end of the article. First we read:

Ten days into Israel’s offensive against Hamas, the militant Islamic group that governs Gaza, the civilian toll was rising alongside that of the militants.

But the article ends:

Among the survivors of the Samouni family, opinions were divided. Some blessed the resistance. But Hamada Al-Samouni, 28, who was lightly wounded by the Israeli rocket and was clearly still in shock, said this was all happening “because of the rockets” fired by Hamas.

He said he had seen the bodies of eight Hamas fighters dressed in civilian clothing lying in the streets around Zeitoun. They had been lying there for two days and nobody had come to collect them, he said.

Hmmm, I seem to remember that yesterday the same reporter was remarking that it was puzzling that there were no wounded or dead Hamas fighters arriving at the hospital:

A week ago, when Israel began its air assault, hundreds of Hamas militants were taken to the hospital. Yet on Sunday, the day Israeli troops flooded Gaza and ground battles with Hamas began, there appeared not to be a single one.

The number of deaths is being counted based on who is brought in to the hospital. So, leaving the bodies of Hamas fighters in the streets drives down the Hamas fighter body count and drives up the civilian to Hamas fighter ratio. And if the Hamas fighters are wearing civilian clothes, wouldn't that also cause miscounting of Hamas fighter deaths as civilian deaths?

Hamas is cowardly, hiding among the civilian population and firing rockets from their neighborhoods. Hamas does not protect its citizens, but endangers them, while seeking to protect itself. And Hamas is deceitful, manipulating the body count to over-count civilian deaths and under-count Hamas fighter deaths. Hamas has not only brought death to the people of Gaza, Hamas has brought shame on the Palestinian people.

Gaza Market Bombing Mystery: Part 2

Yesterday we saw that video posted of the alleged Israeli bombing of a vegetable market in Gaza City was a fraud. However, two major newspapers were carrying reports that the market had been bombed. Now Snapshots: a Camera Blog has raised questions whether the still photos from Reuters of the people hurt in the alleged bombing are faked.

Two Reuters photos of the people hurt and killed in the alleged market bombing seem to have one man in a medium brown jacket apparently performing different roles in each photo:

Here he is acting the role of a wounded Palestinian being carried to the hospital:

and here the same man appears to be fine and acting the role of a grieving family member:


Maybe it is not the same man? Or maybe the market was bombed but the photo shoots were staged? Little Green Footballs says:

We should not forget that every television image and every news photograph coming out of Gaza right now is filtered through Hamas. The photographers filing pictures for Reuters, Associated Press, and Agence France Presse are all Palestinians, and all propagandists for Hamas—or they wouldn’t be allowed to take pictures in Gaza.

So how can we know if the Gaza City market was really bombed?

Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs

Gaza Market Bombing Mystery

I am wondering if the market bombing reported in the Times on Line and the New York Times is the market bombing hoax I read about at Little Green Footballs. The video posted at LiveLeak was actually of a 2005 accidental explosion of a truck full of Hamas rockets at a Palestinian rally but was headlined "GRAPHIC Video of Israel Defense Force’s attack on Gaza civilian market" until a commenter presented convincing evidence of the hoax.

So could the reports that Israel has bombed a market in Gaza today be based on this fraud? The TimesOnLine has it:

In Gaza City an Israeli tank shell killed a family of five Palestinians, including a 14-year-old girl, when it hit their car. In a separate attack, an Israeli shell hit the main vegetable market in the city. A Times reporter at Shifa hospital saw six ambulances and seven cars – there is a shortage of emergency vehicles – ferry in the wounded. Two were badly maimed children. Medics said five people were killed in the market bombing, and 40 wounded. Israel said it had no knowledge of a market being hit.

I bolded that last sentence about Israel having no knowledge of the incident because it jumped out at me. Israel seems to have extensive knowledge and great documentation, so why not of this particular incident, I wondered.
The New York Times just gives a brief report:

In Gaza City, at least five civilians were killed and many more wounded after Israeli rockets or shells landed in the market.

The sources listed at the bottom of the page are:

Sources: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; The Palestinian Information Center; Israel Defense Forces

I just wanted to document this. Maybe there is both a hoax market bombing and a real market bombing. Or maybe there was a real market bombing but Hamas didn't have good video, so they manufactured this fake one from their 2005 accident. Not sure. Time will tell, I suppose.

Episcopal Church Membership Statistics

UPDATE: This post has been updated to include Julia Duin of the Washington Times

The membership numbers for The Episcopal Church (TEC) are in the news today with the announcement of the new Anglican Church in North America. But the reporters are reporting different numbers.

Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times is still using a membership for TEC of 2.3 million. Kind of sneaky the way she wrote this sentence to make it seem the number for TEC was provided by the new North American church:

Bishop Duncan will be named the archbishop and primate of the North American church, which says it would have 100,000 members, compared with 2.3 million in the Episcopal Church.

Michelle Boorstein in the Washington Post story is using 2.2 million.

But Julis Duin in the Washington Times story, Duke Helfand in the LA Times story, Michael Conlon for the Reuters story and Rachel Zoll for the AP story all have membership down to 2.1 million.

If we are talking about The Episcopal Church in North America, e.g., the Domestic Dioceses, TEC is officially reporting membership down to 2.1 million for 2007. These 2007 numbers still include all ten thousand members of the Episcopal Diocese for San Joaquin although San Joaquin voted themselves out of TEC and joined the Southern Cone in December 2007, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. And using the 2007 numbers does not reflect the 2008 losses of the dioceses and churches now forming the Anglican Church in North America.


However, the TEC report shows Non-Domestic Dioceses beginning in 2002. As of 2007, the membership in these non-North American diocese raises the TEC total to 2.3 million. But it would not make sense to include the Non-Domestic Dioceses in a direct comparison with the new Anglican Church in North America. If we are looking at TEC including the Non-Domestic Diocese, shouldn't we compare to the total membership in GAFCON? Hmmm, that gets a little embarrassing, what with the large memberships in the Anglican churches in Nigeria, etc.

Perhaps Manya A. Brachear for the Chicago Tribune was wise to just write TEC has "has about 2 million members" and not use a decimal point at all.

Media Reporting on Muslim Violence in Jos

Update: I no longer believe the Muslim rioting against Christians was spontaneous. See here and here.

Original Post: There have been three Islamic attacks against those of other religions this week: in Mumbai India, in Jos Nigeria, and in Cairo Egypt. While the horrific attack in Mumbai appears to have been carefully planned, the rioting in Cairo and in Jos seem to be spontaneous outbreaks of religious/ethnic hatred by Muslims against Christians. For the reporting in Jos, I noticed that the news stories seemed to be shifting shape over time to obscure the Muslim instigation.

The early Reuters report of the rioting in Jos attributed the outbreak of violence to Hausa youths, but did not explain that the Hausa are Muslim until the final paragraphs of the story:

JOS, Nigeria, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Youths with machetes hacked to death a policeman and burned tyres in the central Nigerian town of Jos on Friday in protest over the outcome of a local government election, witnesses said.

Demonstrators from the Hausa ethnic group began protesting overnight after a rumour spread that their ANPP party candidate had lost the local government chairmanship race to the ruling PDP party.

As the death toll escalated, a later AP report began by attributing the violence to both sides:

JOS, Nigeria (AP) — Feuding Muslim and Christian mobs burned homes, churches and mosques Saturday as the death toll rose to 35 in Nigeria's worst sectarian violence in years.

After a night of assault-rifle fire and explosions, 20 bodies with fresh wounds arrived at the city's main mosque for quick burial in keeping with Islamic precepts.

The article in today's New York Times began the report at the location of a mosque so that the story begins with the Muslims as the victims:

JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) — More than 200 bodies have been brought to the main mosque in Jos in central Nigeria after ethnic and religious clashes, and the final death toll is likely to be higher, the Red Cross said Saturday.

A senior Nigerian Red Cross official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that 218 bodies were lying in the main mosque here awaiting burial.

“There are many other bodies in the streets,” the official said. That death toll did not include hospital figures, victims already buried, or those taken to other places of worship, meaning the final count could be much higher, officials said.

20,000 Muslims Riot at Cairo Church

From the AINA:

One thousand Christians were today trapped inside the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams,Cairo, after more than twenty thousand Muslims attacked them with stones and butane gas cylinders. The Church's priest Father Antonious said that the situation is extremely dangerous.

The Muslim mob that attacked the church blocked both sides of the street and encircled the church building, broke its doors and demolished its entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying "we will demolish the church" and "We sacrifice our blood and souls, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Islam", while the entrapped Christians chanted "Lord have mercy".
The incident started on the occasion of the inauguration of the Church today, when the Muslims hastily established a Mosque in the early hours of this morning, by taking over the first floor of a newly-built building facing the Church and started praying there.

Read it all here

Two videos are posted here.