Going five rounds and then some with those Egyptian Crucifixions…

[ by Charles Cameron — news, debate, credibility, Muslim brotherhood, Egypt, Ansar al-Shariah, Yemen, capital punishment, scriptures, USA, progress? ]

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There’s plenty of food for thought here — quite a Smörgåsbord in fact — with rumor outstripping fact, images and facts too grisly for the squeamish, biases and bias-confirmation, subtlety in the details, scriptural sanctions and shifts in emphasis, capital punishment… and human progress, to paraphrase William Gibson, more or less evenly distributed.

Round One:

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On the 17th of August, Michael Carl wrote a piece, Arab Spring run amok: ‘Brotherhood’ starts Crucifixions in WorldNetDaily:

The Arab Spring takeover of Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood has run amok, with reports from several different media agencies that the radical Muslims have begun crucifying opponents of newly installed President Mohammed Morsi.

Middle East media confirm that during a recent rampage, Muslim Brotherhood operatives “crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others.”

The run amok is stated as fact, the crucifixions are described in terms of reports.

Also worth noting:

Carl quoted in his support Raymond Ibrahim — a Fellow with the Middle East Forum and the Investigative Project on Terrorism — in support. It is worth noting that Ibrahim, who authored The Al Qaeda Reader — a book I admire for its pointed insistance of the religious current in AQ documents — is himself an American of Egyptian Coptic Christian parentage, whose views of the Brotherhood can be gleaned from a recent post of his titled Egypt: Islamists vs. Copts — An Animosity That Seeks Any Excuse to Attack

Round Two:

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On the 22nd, Jonathan Kay responded to Carl’s piece in the [Candadian] National Post, Egypt’s “crucifixion” hoax becomes an instant Internet myth:

Have you heard the one about how Christians are being nailed up on crucifixes and left to die in front of the Egyptian presidential place?

It’s a story worth dissecting — not because it’s true (it isn’t), but because it is a textbook example of how the Internet, once thought to be the perfect medium of truth-seeking, has been co-opted by culture warriors as a weapon to fire up the naïve masses with lies and urban legends.

Kay then offered his somewhat nuanced critique:

It is, of course, theoretically possible that Muslim radicals truly have “crucified” someone, somewhere, sometime, in Egypt. Islamist mobs have staged countless murderous attacks on Copt “infidels” in recent years — and a crucifixion would hardly be a more barbarous tactic than truck bombs and beheadings.

But the story doesn’t just allege that a crucifixion has taken place somewhere in Egypt: It alleges that multiple crucifixions have taken place in front of the presidential palace. That would be the equivalent of, say, mass lynchings taking place in front of the White House, or a giant gang rape taking place in front of Ottawa’s Centennial Flame fountain.

Kay then goes into some detail about his attempts to find a single photograph — or an eyewitness account — of a crucifixion outside Egypt’s Presidential Palace, and his inability to find either one, coupled with his research into the murky origins of the story…

His overall sense of things?

Why do so many people believe this made up story? For the same reason that people believe all urban legends — because they play to some deeply held narrative that resides in our deepest fears. In this case, the narrative is that the Arab Spring is part of an orchestrated Islamist plot to destroy Western civilization (beginning with Israel).

Round Three:

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Carl quickly responded with Video Report confirms Egyptian Crucificions.

The problem here: Kay had written “That’s because there is no Sky report on the subject” — he had, he write that, and Carl quoted him, pointing out that Sky had in fact carried a report, as if that dismissed Kay’s point. What Carl didn’t quote was the following paragraphs, in which Kay said:

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