Over at The Guardian, Ben White's disturbed by Hamas and its virtue campaign. He documents an impressive laundry list, including harassing of shopkeepers who use female mannequins, compelling women to cover their hair, and a legal ruling that female lawyers must wear hijabs.
You'd think White's describing a group of repressed Islamic misogynists. But he blames Israel:
But why is this happening now? One answer is that these developments in Gaza are a consequence of the state of siege that the tiny territory has been under – a society that has been fenced-in, starved, and seen its very fabric torn apart by unemployment and wanton military destruction. In the words of a Gaza human rights worker, isolation bred "extremism and dark ideas".
Eyad Sarraj, a prominent Gazan mental health expert and psychiatrist, noted that Hamas is focusing on the likes of "women's dress" and "segregation of the sexes, especially in public or in schools". Rather than prioritising "honesty or financial probity", the obsession is with "sex", because "these things are visible and people are easily intimidated because such issues address their traditional anxieties".
The Palestinians knew what Hamas stood for back when they voted the Islamists into power in 2005: No dancing and gays if Hamas gets its way.
