“The new Palestinian culture minister has set his sights on stamping out pornography — and belly dancing. Atallah Abu Al-Subbah, a senior official of Islamist militant group Hamas, said belly dancing was ‘a form of striptease’. ‘I do not regard forms of pornography and striptease as culture. They are destructive,’ Abu Al-Subbah told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday… Abu Al-Subbah did not say how he would seek to outlaw belly dancing, which used to be performed in public in Gaza before a Palestinian uprising against Israel began in 2000. Some Palestinians expect Egyptian and Arab entertainers and singers to resume performances in Gaza, especially in the coming summer months, after the Palestinians took control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt late last year. Abu Al-Subbah blamed Israel for the spread of pornographic movies in Gaza and the West Bank. He vowed to confront the vice by boosting the ‘culture of resistance’ and Islamic values.” — Daily Times (US)

If you weren’t quite sure where you stood on the incessant conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, maybe this will decide you. After all, this really raises the stakes. Now they’re not fighting over some dusty corner of Jerusalem. Now they’re fighting over sex.

On one hand, Mr. Al-Subbah seems to have some grounds for identifying Israel with pornography. There is a booming porn industry in Israel, and the Jewish prayer for people browsing pornography doesn’t seem to have prevented Israel from producing, according to commenters, some of the most “smokin’ hot” women in the world. On the other hand, these repressive attempts seem doomed to fail in the internet age. What’s more, suppression only tends to fuel desire. An Israeli porn producer talks about how the porn community there is filled with formerly religious people: “The whole Israeli porn industry is run by people who were once religious… Because porn was forbidden, it just explodes out of you.” According to that logic, maybe it would even be a good thing if Mr. Al-Subbah is able to repress the local porn industry — it might result in a whole new boom of Palestinian porn.

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