However as someone who has been pretty up to date on fashion trends for the past 10 years or so I am rather confidant that the kaffiyeh is a relativly recent American fashion piece (I do recall seeing them pop up about two or three years ago before this current wave)

While the discussions are interesting, and heated one just needs to understand fashion better to see that this is in fact something that has become popular BECAUSE of the terrorists not despite them. Its not out of the blue “we love this aspect of Muslim culture” don’t be nieve. The scarf did not become popular in Western Fashion until Terrorists were seen on TV with them. So every other argument, while interesting and educated is mute because no one seems to grasp to sociology of the fashion industry. You think people in urban outfitters are saying “oh I am so interested in buying this scarf that is full of history and culture”? I don’t think they are, I think they are just getting it because its cool to get it, and those who put it on the market only did so because they thought they could cash in on the popularity of the terroists and the confilct it causes.

And HONESTLY can you say that a true Muslim is HAPPY that some idiot stoner in the Village is wearing his holy scarf? Yeah Right. Its an insult to all Muslims, just as much as the terrorists are also insulting their heritage.

So you can have all your philosophical debates about this all you want but in the end they only became popular when terrorists on TV wore them….THEREFORE they represent Terror when worn in an Western Fashion context.

My point is that actions are more powerful than symbols. And taking offense to something that might or might not be offensive is ridiculous.

I have no problem with you saying a swastika is offensive and shouldn’t be worn by celebrities. But let’s say celebrities start wearing an imageof a window, with four square connected. Now from a far it might look like a swatiska but up close it isn’t. Should you cry anti-semite for such an image? I think not!

I am just as hurt when a Palestinian child dies as much as I am hurt when a jew gets blown up. Because the point is a life is taken away. A life that HaShem created. A life that had a purpose.

Yasser Arafat… Allow me to introduce Exhibit A

http://focusonjerusalem.com/111706f.jpg

Now I have seen a lot of chassids in my day and age wear something similiar. OMG I have come across self hating JEWS?

Um.. no… I haven’t. Clothing is clothing. If Yasser Arafat wears something it doesn’t mean it is a symbol.

If you do want to make a positive movement. Then learn to take something that is evil and force it to become good.

Last I checked, hurling a stone through a moving car’s windshield can and has killed and seriously injured the people inside that car. A stone is no less deadly than a bullet in such circumstances. But apparently the 1st “intifadeh” propaganda images have worked their intended purpose on you, so I will also point out that the Palestinian Arabs do not only use rocks in their “resistance” against Israel; they’ve moved on to suicide bombings and guns. The t-shirt I mentioned in this article depicted three Palestinian Arab children wielding AK-47s. Did you mistake these for rocks? Funny looking rocks.

So yes, the Palestinian Arab children on those t-shirts have been victimized, both by their leaders who have forced them into becoming child soldiers, and by this cheap t-shirt maker who exploited their image to make a few bucks. But NOT by Israel.

As for your other comments, clearly you missed the point of the post; it is precisely because we are outraged by the killing that we are outraged by this new fashion trend. You say it’s merely “about a scarf,” but you’re ignoring the very real political connotations this type of scarf carries.