In a recent conversation with a Middle East expert, I learned more about the symbolic importance that facial hair has in Palestinian society. If you just have a moustache, you’re secular or Christian. If you have a beard, you’re Muslim.

Now I see that warring Palestinian factions are shaving off each other’s facial hair as punishment. In fact, one report about this mentions all the rampant shaving going on, and then as an afterthought says that there is also torture – though that seems to be a given. The real horror is the shaving.