Conclusion  

This study revealed that the inherited culture is still the major criteria that dominates the society, and controls the social views of the people in the society, especially in the subject of killing women on the basis of family honor. It was also found that killing to save family honor is seen as a social disciplinary duty, and this was obvious in the wide support for women to wear the veil and gown, and the strong support for separation between men and women in many activities.

Through those trends and points of view, it was revealed that men and women held different ideas regarding the issue of killing women on the basis of family honor. The above-mentioned tables show that women, in general, oppose the killing, because the woman is always the victim, so females prefer to aid the victim rather than kill her, while men believe that the woman (victim) must be killed in order to wipe out the disgrace.

We find that the positive law is greatly affected by the inherited culture. In courts, many cases of honor killing end with the killer being found innocent and released, or given a light sentence. Moreover, with the absence of a formal national authority, people seek an alternative in the tribal judiciary, where also in such cases the judges also try to cover up the crime to avoid the scandal for the family.

We also discovered that educational level and the commitment to religion was not very influential on the issue of honor killing. The ideas of secular people, religious and traditional people were almost the same in most of the aspects of the subject. This is explained by the social value of modesty and the male authority in our society. The level of education did not have much effect on the trends of people in this study. This has proved that we need social education besides the academic fields in order to overcome old traditions and beliefs.

In general, the people’s ideas on the subject of honor killing in Palestinian society did not differ to a great extent, as a result of places of living or level of education or their commitment to religion. This is due to the inherited culture among the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, there seem to be some indications of development on this issue, shown by the high percentage of males and females who consider it to be a serious social problem.