Gaza divorce rate goes up. Israel blamed, of course.

Palestine Press Agency reports that the divorce rate in Gaza has been increasing, reaching 17% last year.

The reason?

[Experts] attribute the high divorce rate among Palestinian youth to unemployment, which increased as a result of the split between Fatah and Hamas, as well as the Israeli blockade which is still deeply hurting parts of Palestinian society, including married life which now lack the minimum requirements needed.

Yet the divorced people interviewed in the article give lots of reasons - none of which these analysts choose to mention.

One man divorced his wife because she liked to go out without his permission. Another did because of "extreme stubbornness and suspicious actions."

One woman said "I wish to live a life like I see in Turkish TV, where they are people who are civilized and respect the women and their privacy, and you cannot find this in Gaza, where the orders of her husband are a sword hanging over the neck of his wife."

Now, if you blame the higher divorce rate on Israel, who can you blame for a low divorce rate?

In fact, Palestinian Arabs used to brag that their divorce rate is the lowest in the Arab world.

In the first two years of the intifada, the divorce rate in the territories plummeted as much as 70% in Nablus  - because, according to this book, men couldn't afford the expense of a new bride.

So poverty causes divorces, and it also causes a reduction in divorces - and either way, Israel is at fault!

Incidentally, recent divorce rates are 20% in Saudi Arabia, 24% in Bahrain, 25.6% in the UAE, 34.8% in Qatar and 37.1% in Kuwait.

I'm sure that Israel is to blame somehow for that as well.