This changes everything

Another blogger asked me if I have found that liberal Christians tend to support Palestinian positions over the Israeli ones.

I don't usually post in Israeli/Palestinian issues, because frankly, I don't have strong feelings about one side or the other, as evidenced by reply to the question:

I've noticed more of a tendency among liberal JEWS to lean towards supporting Palestinian positions over Israeli ones. Most liberal Christians I know aren't all that concerned with Israel one way or the other.

I have to admit, I don't really have strong feelings about Israel, nor do I feel any tie to Israel. I don't buy the religious reasoning behind it, and when you have three major religions all claiming the same rock as their own, you have a built-in problem. The modern state of Israel was created to assuage the western world's guilt about the holocaust, and it's been nothing but a problem for that part of the world ever since.

The Palestinians have a problem because NO ONE gives a shit about them. Anyone who believes that Osama Bin Laden, or the Saudis, or anyone else supports the
Palestinians for any reason other than political expedience is fooling himself.

I think there's plenty of blame to go around here. I've long said that you do not honor Holocaust victims by behaving like Nazis -- and yet guys like Ariel
Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu keep getting elected to head up the country.

I don't know what the answer is; maybe a two-state solution, but of course none of this solves the problem of the Temple Mount or any of that. You have too many people claiming divine right over that particular collection of rocks, and as we see right here in the USA, people who claim God wants them to have something are always dangerous.

Israel and the Palestinians is one of those age-old conflicts that just can't seem to go away, but it seems to trigger much of the unrest in the world. I wish it were true that Israel had outlived its usefulness, but increasing anti-Semitism around the world, combined with all the "Jewish conspiracy" theories that arose after 9/11 indicate that nothing much has changed. That said, moving a bunch of people out of the way to carve out the Jewish state probably wasn't the best way to handle things. And yet, here we are, in this endless cycle of violence, retaliation, more violence, more retaliation.

But if THIS kind of barbarism is the stuff the Palestinians are starting to adopt and endorse, I'm going to have no choice but to say, fuck 'em:

Hamas has mounted a desperate damage-limitation exercise after one of its units shot dead a 20-year-old Palestinian woman for "immoral behaviour" as she enjoyed a day out with her future husband.

Angry residents of Beit Lahia, close to Gaza City, have demanded - so far in vain - that the Islamic armed faction hands over three of the gunmen still at large to the Palestinian Authority after what the victim's family believes was a tragically unjustified type of "honour killing".

The masked Hamas gunmen shot dead Yusra Azzami as she sat in the front passenger seat of her fiancé's Mitsubishi after they had forced it to stop. They went on to beat up her fiancé, Ziad Zaranda, and his brother, Rami, before escaping in the victims' car. Yusra's terrified sister, Magdalen, who was engaged to Rami, ran away before she too was beaten.

Two senior officials from Hamas, which has admitted that members of the faction killed the woman, were turned away by her grief-stricken family this week when they visited to present their condolences. Both sisters and brothers were to be married this Friday in a joint ceremony.

The killing casts a spotlight on the chronic - and in the view of some residents deteriorating - weakness of law and order in the Strip. But it may also have a seriously adverse effect on Hamas's campaign in a series of municipal elections in Gaza next month, including in Beit Lahia itself.

A Hamas spokesman said the woman was shot because there was a mistaken "suspicion of immoral behaviour" by the couples. But it was not clear yesterday whether inter-factional rivalry had also played a part since Yusra Azzami was a Hamas member at the Islamic university while her fiancé was in Fatah.

Other factions have been quick to condemn the killing, and gunfire was exchanged between Hamas and Fatah at the victim's funeral last Saturday. Hamas also provoked outrage among some residents by claiming her as one of its "martyrs". The faction, which seeks to enforce the strictest Islamic codes on alcohol consumption and pre-marital contact, has issued leaflets in the town saying the killing was a mistake, promising to punish the culprits and that its members will abide by "the law of God".

Both couples had exchanged married certificates after their betrothal. Although they were not yet living together, they were married according to Islamic law.

What this means is that Hamas is now enforcing Shari'a law in the territories. As I understand it, Shari'a isn't codified anywhere, but is pretty much up to the prejudices and personal agendas of whoever happens to be in power. From what I've seen, Shari'a as it's practices, like the agenda of the Christian right as practiced, is a function of fear and loathing of women; particularly women's sexuality. Sorry, folks, but as soon as you start shooting women in cars because you think they're not married enough, you've lost me.

(via Americablog)