IPRIS

Bruno Oliveira Martins, "The Operation "Pillar of Defense" and the Reshaping of the Middle East" (IPRIS Viewpoints, No. 110, November 2012).

By Diogo Noivo

In the Gaza strip, Hamas is once again showing its true colors. The journalist Henrique Cymerman did a very interesting report for the Portuguese television SIC where he shows Hamas’s most recent policies. The Islamist movement has imposed a number of laws that restrict individual freedom, especially of women.

The Palestinian women living in Gaza have been forbidden to smoke narguiles (water pipes) due to an alleged sexual connotation in the act of smoking. On an equally ridiculous approach, Hamas has forbidden women from having their hair cut in the presence of men. Furthermore, women from Gaza are also forced to cover from head to toe which, among other measures, reflects a clear purpose of imposing a strict Islamist life-style in the territory.

One must wonder where are the freedom fighters that struggle for the end of oppression in Gaza, namely those who were aboard the famous Aid Flotilla...

The same must be asked to innumerous movements and political parties that, in Europe, have taken the Palestinian cause as their own. The duality (if not the complete absence of intellectual honesty) that characterizes the European left-wing movements is simply outrageous. For them, it is a moral imperative to censure Israel’s Gaza blockade. However, they become mute each and every time that Hamas enforces clear violations of individual freedoms. What is more curious is that the majority of these left-wing European movements and parties also claim to stand for women’s rights...

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