Mick Hartley

More on Iran, this time looking at its hold over Hamas – a fact generally ignored in the Western press:

Anti-regime protests in Iran that started with opposition to compulsory head-covering for women are drawing attention to a similar conflict in Gaza, the Palestinian-controlled territory governed by the Iran-supported Islamist group Hamas.

Pupils and teachers are complaining that school head teachers have been trying to impose the hijab on pupils at girls’ schools. They insist there is no compulsion in Palestinian law.

“My family never forced me to wear hijab but my headmistress called me out every day and insulted me for not wearing one,” said one girl, Malak Abu Hanoun, 17. “I have been kicked out of school for a couple of days and was asked to never come back unless I wore one.”

Gaza is officially part of the broader Palestinian entity that also includes the West Bank. In 2007 Hamas, an Islamist group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, took over Gaza and became the de facto authority, while the Palestian Authority, which is secular in outlook, kept control over the West Bank. Talks to reunite the two have repeatedly failed.

Hamas has been supported by Iran, including with missiles and other weaponry, and while it is Sunni rather than Shia Muslim, it shares the Islamic Republic’s version of state-imposed religiosity.

This has brought the movement into conflict with civil society groups as well as many ordinary Gazans. Courts in Gaza have demanded female lawyers wear hijab in court, in the face of opposition from a syndicate of lawyers.

In schools, teachers complain that education is being made secondary to the spread of ideology.

You don't say.

A central plank of that ideology, of course, is a hatred of Jews, and the unceasing call for the annihilation of Israel.