"Reputation is Everything": Honor Killing Among the Palestinians, by James Emery, Anthropologist Community
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...
Among Palestinians, all sexual encounters, including rape and incest, are blamed on the woman. Men are presumed innocent; the woman must have tempted him into raping her or enticed him into having an affair. A woman is expected to protect her honor, even at the cost of her own life. If she survives a violent rape, she is condemned for her "mistake" and may be killed by her family.
"The issue of consent is irrelevant when it comes to honor killings," says Marsha Freeman, director of the International Women's Rights Action Watch...
Over 75 percent of the Palestinian women in Jordan subjected to hymen exams were subsequently killed by family members, even when tests proved they were still virgins...
In some areas, a Palestinian woman is required to have a male relative accompany her whenever she leaves the home. Unfortunately, her male "guardian" -- father, brother, uncle, or cousin -- may be a sexual predator who rapes her. Should she become pregnant, he will publicly condemn her for dishonoring the family after killing both her and their unborn child. Last year, seventeen-year-old Afaf Younes was killed by her father, who had allegedly been sexually molesting her...
A sixteen-year-old Palestinian girl became pregnant after being raped by her younger brother. Once her condition became known, her family encouraged her older brother to kill her to remove the blemish from their honor. Her brothers, the rapist and the murderer, were exonerated. The girl was blamed. "She made a mistake," said one of her male cousins. "She had to pay for it."
by James Emery If a woman brings shame to the family -- through allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, by refusing an arranged marriage, or attempting to obtain a divorce -- her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to murder her. "Honor is everything," says Ahmed, a 52-year-old…
anthropologist.livejournal.com
-----------
I am confident that Western progressives who take the side of Palestine against Israel would rather live in Israel than in any Arab country in the world, especially Gaza.