by Rosie Alfatlawi
The murder of a young Arab-Israeli woman has received considerable media attention worldwide.
Henriette Kara was a Christian teenager from the central Israeli town of Ramla, which has a sizeable Arab minority. She was killed on June 13, allegedly by her father who was angered by her relationship with a Muslim man and plan to convert to Islam.
While undoubtedly a tragic incident, the extent of the international coverage and the form it has taken invite analysis, as does the online debate arising from this reporting.
The English site of Russia Today and a number of minor regional publications called the murder an “honor killing” in their headlines, while other publications (including the Washington Post and Britain’s The Independent) referenced “honor” elsewhere in their reports.
In Israel's indictment of Sami Kara, Henriette’s father, prosecutors described the incident as a suspected “honor killing”. This, because Sami claimed to have felt his daughter’s actions “damaged the honor of the family and made him feel ashamed,” according to the formal charge.
Reports of the incident also invariably referenced the family's Arab-Christian identity.
It is arguably this novelty of a so-called “Christian honor killing” that has piqued interests and sparked debate in the West.
“Honor crimes”, or the punishment or killing of relative who it is felt has brought shame on the family, are often primarily associated in the West with the Muslim community.
Some responding on social media were quick to suggest, however, that “honor killing has no religion.”
Other commenters disputed the characterization of the crime as an “honor killing”. One individual argued that “there’s no such thing as honor killing for Christians” and that “the Arab father murder her daughter because he did not want her to marry a Muslim man in prison period.”
Indeed, many responses emphasized the fact that Henriette’s Muslim boyfriend was in prison as a possible alternative motive for the alleged murder.
"This is cultural not religious"
Some online, however, emphasized the influence of culture over religion in honor crimes.
The commenter who suggests “this is cultural not religious” may have a point. In fact, honor crimes do take place mostly within the Asian and Middle Eastern communities, but not exclusively within the Muslim elements.
There are reported cases of Hindu, Sikh and Christian honor crimes in these regions, and within their diaspora communities.
In 2005, the Guardian reported the “honor killing” of 22-year-old Faten Habash, a Christian Palestinian who had tried to elope to Jordan with a Muslim Palestinian.
The family’s Priest, Father Ibrahim Hijazin, told the paper at the time that “There is no interfaith marriage among Arabs.”
“Catholics here are Christian by faith and Muslim by culture, and in this community it is forbidden for Christians to marry Muslims.”
“It's not good. It's a tribal mentality. I don't accept it, but it is the culture.”
Meanwhile, responding to the “honor killing” of a Pakistani Christian girl last year, Christian activist Shamoon Gill told Agence France Presse such killings have nothing to do with religion but that it is “part of a social issue that is deeply rooted in the eastern societies.”
A different kind of Christian
That may be the case, but some of these responses to reports of the alleged motive for Henriette Kara's killing also highlight the Arab Christian community’s at times uneasy relationship to Christians in the West.
Unwilling for their religion to be associated with honor crimes, some Western Christians in these comments and others have fobbed responsibility off onto the “Arabness” of a Christian individual, Sami Kara.
Jan Tone, the commenter who felt that there was "no such thing as a Christian honor crime", later clarified her views in a reply, saying that: “Oh well hes [sic] an Arab so i guess there is???”
It is arguably this ‘othering’ of Arab Christians by their European and North American counterparts that facilitates the Trump administration's justification of deporting Iraqi Christian refugees in the US back to Iraq where their lives will be in danger.
Or feeds the support among some Christians in the West for Israeli mistreatment of Palestinian Christians living, for instance, in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and other Christian holy sites.
So, when one commenter asks “is this misleading headline a politically motivated effort to falsely portray Christians as just as likely to commit honor Killings as Muslims?” the response is that no, it’s not, members of the Arab Christian community do carry out such crimes.
However, the fascination with the “otherness” of that community in the Western media and in the minds of many Western Christians is only going to create greater difficulties for that group which is at once seen as not Christian enough and not Arab enough.
