Bish noticed a piece of interesting gossip on one of the more popular Israeli current affairs forums. Writes one Nitzan Or, that according to a news item on Arab radio station Monte Carlo, Rim Sallah al-Riashy, the twenty two year old female suicide bomber, married and mother of two from one of the wealthiest families in Gaza, that blew herself up in the border crossing between Gaza and Israel on Wednesday morning, did so because she was five months pregnant from her husband’s cousin and was going to die anyway, to pay for the dishonor she had caused her family. The radio station explained that her husband encouraged her to be a suicide bomber so she would at least save the family’s honor. The Hamas promised to look after her daughters until they were married.

Whatever her reasons (there are rumors that her husband was fed up of her and persuaded her to do it so as to be rid of her), off she went. They say she could have won an Oscar for her tearful performance. She told the soldiers at the border that the metal detector had beeped because she had metal pins in her leg. She cried and begged that she had to get into Israel for medical treatment.

Now the real crippled Palestinians and the real sick Palestinians, who really do need to get treatment in Israel, will pay the price. It will be so much harder for them to get in. It’s the ambulance story all over again. But no one will remember that when the soldiers don’t let people through. They’ll blame the Israelis’ hard heartedness. No one will blame Rim Sallah al-Riashy. She’ll be the Shaheeda, the revered heroine, another number on Palestinian statistics of Palestinians killed in this war by the Israelis (yes, believe it or not, suicide bombers are counted by Palestinians and “peace” organizations as victims of Israeli hostilities).

Read here about Hamas’ aims.

Update (1/18): This story was all over the front page of Yediot Aharonot this morning. And it gets worse - according to the most popular newspaper in Israel, the husband's cousin, and Rim's lover, was in on sending her to explode. He actually gave her the explosive belt.

I can't help thinking that the whole thing might have been a plot to get rid of her after all. The husband was fed up of her, so he sent his cousin to seduce her. Then they had cause to kill her, talking her into doing "the honorable thing" and becoming a shaheeda, while they were at it. How wicked can you get?