The Noble Palestinian Savage?

I've tried to stay out of the neverending mess in the Middle East, as it just seems so futile and useless to take a stance. Historically speaking, neither side is right or wrong, so no one has any clear claim on the territory, which at first glance seems to be at the heart of the struggle. The fact is that very few countries or nations can claim that they were not founded using force, slaughtering and displacing the previous inhabitants, who themselves often had massacred the previous inhabitants. Hence, the argument that Israel has no right to exist because it was founded upon violent displacement of previous inhabitants is as ridiculous as stating that America or Australia, et al., ad nauseam, have no right to exist because of their similar foundings. In other words - and I do not say this lightly, because I am no fan of "Zionism," whatever that term may mean - Israel has as much right to exist as does any other nation, based purely on the aggressive state of human history.

Now, I know well that it is quite fashionable in some quarters to champion the Palestinian cause, as, surprisingly, Jewish-owned or operated media around the world take the "bleeding heart liberal" perspective, which finds a ready audience in aging and vocal hippies. Don't get me wrong - I find all the violence and bloodshed to be despicable and abhorrent, to the point where, if I really inspected it, I would blow chow. It has always been my fervent wish that human beings would just stop fighting - in other words, cut it out already! It is for this reason that I continually stick my neck out and roundly criticize and condemn the diviseness of religion as so much deleterious dementia. As far as I am concerned, no religion is "the one and only truth," and most, in fact, border on retardation. For the purposes of this essay, however, I will not go into great detail about my criticisms of religion, as they can be found all over my website, my blog, my forum, my discussion groups and in my books.

All that having been said, with what I know about the Palestinian culture, which isn't a great deal but which is significant, I have to scratch my head at the rabid liberal perspective that demonizes the Israelis and angelizes the Palestians. In reality, both sides have behaved badly, and neither should be exonerated - which means that the Palestinian culture is not without its serious blemishes that need to be pointed out and condemned. Nay, "blemishes" is much too gentle a word. Horrors is more applicable, in fact. Well, what on Earth am I talking about? And why, if I am correct, are not more people bringing it up in the mainstream media? Why are women's groups in particular not harshly condemning these horrors? These are good questions that can only be answered by the fact of the basic human capacity for denial.

Murder by family

What I am talking about is the rampant honor killings of women and girls that come hand in hand with Palestinian culture, however that is defined. (There are those, of course, who claim that "Palestinian" is not actually a proper name, as these people are not really an ethnicity per se and the term is "manmade," but that argument is quite moot, because it could be applied to all ethnicities and cultures, as they are all manmade and not ordained from on high.) In any event, it is quite common in the Palestinian culture, and elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world, for women and girls to be brutally murdered by their own relatives, such as brothers or fathers, when it has been determined that they have "brought shame" upon their families. This "shame" frequently comes in the form of the female daring to have sex but also if she is sexually abused or raped. In other words, if a girl or woman is victimized, it is she who is to blame and who is deemed worthy of murder. Because of this brutal and barbaric mentality, countless women and girls have been shot in the head, decapitated, or otherwise murdered simply because they were women whom men could abuse or rape. And, again, this vile practice is common in the Palestinian culture, where women apparently have little value, as dictated by the Koran and other Islamic traditions.

Let us give an example that may be useful in driving home the point that things in the Middle East are a bit more complicated than they appear. Although I do not see Israeli defenders raising these issues - but perhaps they should - according to one brutal honor killer who cut off his own daughter's head in 1997, and who happened to be the Palestinian National Authority attorney general, some 70% of all murders in Gaza and the West Bank were of women and girls, and constituted honor killings. This psychotic individual's assertions apparently have merit, as writer James Emery relates:

"In the Palestinian communities of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel, and Jordan, women are executed in their homes, in open fields, and occasionally in public, sometimes before crowds of cheering onlookers. Honor killings account for virtually all of the murders of Palestinian women in these areas."

"The murder of females in the Middle East is an ancient tradition."

In consideration of the facts that a woman being raped in these cultures is deemed "dishonor" brought by the victim, but cutting off her head, shooting her or otherwise murdering her is viewed as "honorable," is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the Israelis have their hands more full than the rest of the world suspects? If a woman's life holds so little value, and a people find it more honorable to murder a victim of violent crime than to punish her attacker, are we dealing with a rational mindset that is entirely exculpable from bringing on its own troubles? If the heartless "blame the victim" mentality in one culture can be so overlooked, why cannot it be likewise in another culture? In any case, it is clear that the "noble Palestinian savage" is but a myth. There is nothing "noble" about a culture that is engrained with, and avidly practices, so-called honor killings.

Sources:

Reputation is Everything: Honor Killing among the Palestinians
Honor killing demands global response