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Source: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1254163537553&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
The Islamic Republic of Gaza
[Jerusalem Post] Jonathan Spyer - Reliable sources confirm the growing dominance of Islam in Gaza. A new "Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" security force, which operates under the command of the Ministry of the Islamic Endowment (Waqf), has been tasked with enforcing Islamic codes of behavior. Its members patrol beaches, parks and public areas, ensuring proper Islamic modesty. One man wearing shorts while sitting on his own balcony in southern Gaza was advised that this must not happen again. Rules ban men from bathing topless, and women from laughing or smiling while bathing. A special all-female unit within the police numbering 100-150 officers has been created to enforce female modesty. Every mosque now has an individual who functions as a kind of political commissar on behalf of the authorities. His task is to observe the prayer habits of all members of the mosque, and to intervene and offer help where insufficient devotion is diagnosed. These developments do not represent any Hamas master plan for the creation of an Islamic republic. Rather, they are taking place because of grass-roots agitation and insistence on the part of ultra-religious elements both within Hamas and outside it. The writer is a senior researcher at the Global Research in International Affairs, IDC, Herzliya.