Muslim Societies Unsure Why Honor Killings Not Enhancing Their Honor

Gaza Strip, March 30 – A rise in the number and frequency of “honor killings” in this coastal territory has political and religious leaders wondering how many more young women must be killed by their families before the desired level of honor is attained.

Over the last three years the number of such killings has increased sharply, doubling twice since 2011. Local Imams and Hamas officials say that the killings are necessary to preserve the honor of a girl’s family when she enters a relationship that might or might not be romantic, but has definitely not been approved by the other males in her life, because a girl cannot be trusted to make her own decisions. A girl or woman who defies the will of those male relatives shames the family, and the honor of the family can then only be maintained when one or more of those males kills the woman.

But the apparently increasing necessity to implement those killings has prompted those leaders, and others in the Muslim world, to question why despite such important measures, their society remains mired in shame, defeat, squalor, and repression. Once the chief environment for the world’s intellectual development, Muslim society has sunk over the last century into fundamentalism, barbarism, and ideological narrow-mindedness. If not for oil revenues, say experts, the abusive autocrats who run those countries would have insufficient resources to suppress dissent and force a distorted picture of national unity onto an inadequately amalgamated group of rival tribes.

To combat that descent into tribalism and backwardness, several of those more aggressively Muslim societies has turned to honor killings as a way of assuaging their wounded pride, in addition of course to blaming Israel for the situation. Palestinian leaders, for example, hold Israel responsible for creating the environment in which honor killings result, noting that obviously, nothing of the sort was ever necessary before the Zionists came along.

Several countries have even implemented more sweeping preventive measures, such as banning women entirely, but the Gaza Strip currently does not enjoy that option, as Egypt and Israel have imposed tight restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza.

“We’ll just have to keep at it by our own devices,” said Hamas spokesman Mahmoud A-Zahar. “Whatever it takes to enhance our honor. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to advise some of our allies on policies to be addressed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.”