Abstract: In this paper I will review some attitudes and perspectives regarding family honor killings, mainly in the Arab/Bedouin population in Israel, Sinai, and the Middle East in general. What is the difference between sharaf and 'ird? What deviant sexual behavior is considered a capital offense? How widespread is the use of honor killings, and what alternative sanctions are employed? Under which circumstances are compassion and mercy exercised? What kinds of solutions exist for such cases? The research also analyzes the conflicts that exist between custom and state law vis-à-vis family honor killings, and examines how court systems in Israel and elsewhere relate to murders committed to save family honor. The research illuminates the role of sheiks and the police in defusing tensions and saving lives, and explores how Arab leaders in Israel view and address honor killings.

Keywords: Arab/Bedouin, Israel, honor killings, customs and law. The findings may be summarized as follows: illicit sex- ual relations of single or married women that become known do not necessarily culminate in the murder of these women. Only if the relative of the woman is motivated to harm a family member - either her father or her brothers, will the relative raise the issue as a public accusation. When a person from an agnate group is the one who make the accusation public, there is no alternative but to murder the woman. The woman pays with her life not because she had illicit sexual relations, but rather because someone in the extended family wanted to cause harm to another member of the family. Her actions and subsequent murder are then only a pretext whose motives were to cause economic or political strife within the agnate group's power matrix.Despite increased exposure to modernization, there is a parallel trend afoot: a return to Muslim religiosity and stricter fulfillment of Islamic religious practices and codes of behavior among Arabs (Bedouin and rural). How the interac- tion created by this encounter with the modern world is or will be played out in Arab society will be a very interesting subject for future research.