In today’s piece titled “Picking Up Pieces, Gazans Debate Israeli Incursion”, you – Mr. Steven Erlanger — include the following astounding passage:
“Residents say the Israeli soldiers were more anxious than during past incursions, and gruffer. At least four young men said independently that the soldiers used them as human shields. The young men were blindfolded and handcuffed, and then lined up, two or three at a time, in front of an Israeli soldier, they said, who guided them from behind as they moved down this street or entered another building. Sometimes, they said, a soldier used their shoulders as props for his M-16 rifle.”
…Here comes the good stuff (Cue sound of needle abruptly slipping off record, dancing club goers looking peeved, etc.):
The young men — Riad Abed Rabo, 26; his brother, Muhammad, 21; his cousin Majdi, also 21; and Hassan Abu Sabah, 32…”
Ahem.
Mr. Erlanger?
Did it occur to you, prior to relaying this to the world, that there may be something fishy about four men repeating the exact same story “independently”, when two of them were brothers and one of them a cousin?
By “independently”, were you simply implying that they did appear to be separate, sentient beings, and not one amorphous mass of interconnected body parts with four distinct mouths, yet sharing a brain stem? Because that would make it okay, though it really isn’t necessary, as there’s only like three of those four-mouthed blobs currently existing, and all of them are totally into Alan Dershowitz’s stuff, I hear.
Best,
David
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/world/middleeast/06gaza.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
