The ransacking of a Catholic convent and an adjacent Rosary Sisters school during Hamas' sweep to power broke more than wood and plaster. It signaled the end of a relatively peaceful, if sometimes uneasy, relationship between Gaza's 1.4 million Muslims and 3,000 Christians.That's in the second paragraph, which is where many of the people who didn't stop reading after the lede stop reading. The bottom of the next paragraph, however, has this little tidbit:
Despite promises of protection by Hamas leaders, Christians fear more attacks, and some say they want to leave. Gaza's flock already has been hit hard by emigration in recent years, and a new exodus could remove what is left of one of the Arab world's oldest Christian communities.Which kind of begs the question: if Gaza's Christians have been living in peace with Hamas, what's been causing the steady flight? It's not the "occupation of Gaza" that, contrary to implications and slips by media outlets, doesn't actually "exist" in "reality". In said "reality", Gaza Christians have been getting firebombed for months if not years. And they're certainly not going to the West Bank, because they've been getting firebombed there too. In fact, as far back as 2005 Christians were already complaining about organizing anti-Christian violence in Palestinian areas. "Relatively peaceful" indeed.
[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]
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