In an attempt to keep myself open to a range of opinion, I subscribe to a few prominent, conservative blogs.  On one, I was surprised to see the above photo and to learn about the addition of EU-trained women to the Palestinian police force (link to original Yahoo news article):

The first class of Palestinian policewomen to complete a new European Union-sponsored training program graduated Sunday, part of a broader EU makeover of the demoralized and ill-equipped Palestinian law enforcement agencies.

The 45 rookies will join a small group of women serving in a role still largely frowned upon in conservative Palestinian society.

I thought that conservatives might be pleased with this development–perhaps along the lines of, “Look, those radical Muslims are Westernizing.”  I was dismayed at how negatively this news was spun, from the snarky title (”The Graduation of the Incredibly Strange EU-Trained Palestinian Female Police Cadets”) to these hideous comments:

They look pretty hot, actually. Too bad they want to kill me.

The unholy alliance between liberals and islamofascisms never ceases to amaze me.

I’d just like to watch as one of these cadets tries to arrest a Palestinian criminal in the act.  I imagine she’d not be too effective.

No law-abiding Palestinian man would respect these girls, much less a frothing criminal. They’d be useless as patrol officers.

To be fair, there were intelligent and even supportive (if pessimistic) comments peppered through there as well.  These were in contrast with so many that were sexist and/or racist or at least consigned Palestinians to needle narrow stereotypes.  The overall impression that I get from the first 50 or so comments is that Palestinians are by default extremist, radical, sexist Islamists with murder on their minds.  This is a far cry from the couple of Palestinians that I’ve known individually, who were eloquent, respected equality between the sexes, and were thoroughly secular.