Danish police said on Thursday that a Palestinian father had hit a primary school teacher and bitten his ear after he had shaken the hand of the man's daughter.

The 47-year-old Danish teacher of Moroccan origin had invited the father and daughter for a meeting at the school in the town of Vollsmose on Wednesday when he had been "repeatedly hit and bitten in the ear", the police said.

"The father, a Palestinian, apparently became furious that the teacher had greeted his daughter just before a meeting," said Joergen Andersen, the police superintendent in the nearby city of Odense.

The 33-year-old father, a Muslim, said the teacher had "gone too far and offended his honour", Andersen said.

"The man is apparently not a fundamentalist," Andersen said. But he "could not accept this handshake between the teacher and his daughter". [Man bites teacher for shaking daughter's hand, Agence France PresseOctober 24, 2009 ]

Well, how fortunate that the chomper was not a fundamentalist. Who knows what he might have done in that case?