Hamas/Taliban Watch
Here's a poignant image to start your day:
A young Arab couple enjoying an evening together, the husband with his arm slung affectionately around his wife's shoulders, the wife leaning back comfortably against him. She is in a headscarf that fully exposes her face and is looking straight ahead, not down at the ground. They appear to be at a performance of some kind, possibly at a beach cafe. The wife is smoking a nargila, or water pipe.
Haaretz reported today that this past Friday, Hamas decreed that women are no longer permitted to smoke nargilas in Gaza. Hamas men burst into cafes without warning and ordered the proprietors to stop providing women patrons with the pipes. Non-compliance, they were told, will result in heavy fines -- but already, several cafe owners have been arrested on suspicion of not enforcing the order. (Gazan women are already forbidden from riding on motorcycles with their husbands, getting their hair cut in "male" hair salons [and male hairstylists are now forbidden from cutting women's hair], and walking on the beach without a male family member present.)
Lest anyone suspect that the logic behind the nargila ruling has anything to do with concern for women's health, Hamas interior ministry spokesman Ihab Ghussein was quick to clarify the official position: the spectacle of a woman smoking in public "harms the image of our people." Police spokesman Ayman Batneiji added that husbands often divorce wives who allow themselves to be seen smoking, though he didn't have any data handy to support this assertion.
Poor Hamas. The NY Times is publishing long articles documenting the miserable conditions in Gaza that have prevailed, and that are getting worse all the time, under their administration. Even the head of the Gaza office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (U.N.R.W.A.) -- an organization that can usually be counted on to toe the Palestinian party line -- says, “They [Hamas] have no credibility in demanding anything from anybody if they show such disregard for the plight of their own people.” They've been called impure and collaborationist (ouch!) by local Islamists even more Talibanesque than themselves, a problem they've had to put down with the occasional all-night gun battle, complete with a couple of dozen deaths. And every time Hamas gets its inner Taliban on, their political rivals in Ramallah start pointing fingers and accusing them of being incapable of running a civilized government.
It's no picnic, being a democratically elected government. Still -- gotta show the people who's in charge. When in doubt, stick it to the women.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
my very wise mother said, once, that as soon as men "get religion", they stick it to the women. That is true, whatever the religion. Then, mix that red hot religion with Islam, and you get (ta daaa): today's Middle East.
Note that Gaza, like Israel and Hong Kong, was 'created' in 1948. Compare and contrast, 200 words or less. (/sarcasm!)
May '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
Women are not allowed to smoke nargilas in San Francisco cafes either, which opens the politics-as-a-circle discussion again. Male-female hair-cutting on the other hand is definitely encouraged.
Somehow my sympathies are greater for the women of Afghanistan or even Saudi Arabia. I've seen Hanan Ashrawi on TV too many times to think that at some level Gaza women are at least partially complicit in the election of Hamas.
... of course I guess that leaves me equally responsible for another election with unintended consequences... hmm.
Jul '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
Wow, I would really hate for anything to harm the image of the Palestinians. That would be just awful.
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
This is something I want you to see, Judith. I shared your post on Facebook. A Turkish acquaintance read it and left this comment:
I'm not endorsing his views on forced sterilization, of course, which (I hope) are tongue-in-cheek. But there's something significant here. 1) He likes being informed. There is no way for Turkish people to be informed unless, like him, they read English and really go out of their way to get news from non-Turkish sources. 2) When they know the facts, Turks are often not unreasonable at all. They're not all Islamists-in-the-bud. There are many here who look at this and have the same reaction we do. But no one is talking to them.
May '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
The answer seems obvious: Time for a Turkish edition of Ricochet... I'm pretty sure there's some Stimulus money left... Ed.?
May '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
This illustrates what democracy advocate Nate Sharansky has so often said: democracy is the answer, yes, but only if the institutions of democracy are in place--a free press, for example.
Jun '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
This issues seem petty, smoking and haircuts, but they are actually extensions of power plotted to radicalize the society. Any that oppose these idiotic gestures are forced to reveal themselves to the ruling elite, once exposed they are potentially subject to the second, unspoken stage of the process, which is either arrest or execution. More often than not it is execution, by the way. These actions are about more than silencing the opposition, they are about killing the opposition, because if you kill your more moderate opponents you are left with, at least publically, supporters that endorse your most radical claims and demands, as no one wants to run the risk the 3:00 am visit from the local party enforcer. That is why in places such as Gaza and the West Bank elections can never be trusted, for they skew far more to the radical than would be the case under “normal” circumstances. The presence of a violent bully in the neighbourhood should never be ignored or under estimated.
Jun '10
Re: Hamas/Taliban Watch
Should never write before coffee: "These issues..." Sorry 'bout that folks.