Culture of Suicide

It was only a matter of time. Depraved Palestinians first sent young adult men wearing explosives to blow themselves up on Israeli buses and in pizza parlors. Then came the phenomenon of young women doing the same. Now a grandmother has chosen this fiendish way of death.
Fatma Omar An-Najar was a mother of nine and grandmother of more than 30. Her suicide in the Gaza Strip lightly injured three Israeli soldiers, so she failed to take "infidels" with her. But that is of little comfort. The use of a grandmother means more horror is coming.

With teenagers as young as 16 already blowing themselves up, children are next in line to become "martyrs."

Terror masterminds are brainwashing a new generation in Muslim countries. Everything from animated cartoons to educational programs to textbooks urge young people to kill and die for Islam. Clerics preach that the fastest way to get to Paradise is Shahada, or to die for Allah. Those who do are called shahids and children as young as 8 are drinking this murderous Kool-Aid.

Newspapers, television, the Internet and even music videos routinely extol the virtues of a violent death. A show on Palestinian TV involving two 11-year-old girls offers a chilling example. According to a transcript and video clip provided by an Israeli-based group called Palestinian Media Watch, the show, which first aired in 2002, features an interviewer talking with the bright, normal-looking girls.

Interviewer: You described Shahada as something beautiful. Do you think it is beautiful?

Walla: Shahada is a very beautiful thing. Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be better than going to Paradise?

Interviewer: What is better, peace and full rights for the Palestinian people or Shahada?

Walla: Shahada. I will achieve my rights after becoming a shahid. We won't stay children forever.

Interviewer: Okay, Yussra, would you agree with that?

Yussra: Of course. It is a good [sweet] thing. We don't want this world, we want the afterlife. We benefit not from this life but from the afterlife ....

Interviewer: Do you actually love death?

Yussra: Death is not Shahada.

Interviewer: No, I mean the absence after death, the physical absence, do you love death?

Yussra: No child loves death. The children of Palestine adopted the concept that this is Shahada. They believe that Shahada is very good. Every Palestinian child, say someone aged 12, says, O Lord, I would like to become a shahid.

The spread of the culture of suicide - "martyrdom" to adherents - is the most disturbing trend in the Muslim world. Starting with Hezbollah in Lebanon in the early 1980s, it has been adopted as a legitimate weapon by both Sunnis and Shiites in numerous nations, especially Iraq.

Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch, recently gave a lecture at Manhattan College to document how a celebration of suicide bombers has taken root among Palestinians in everyday life. He told of how one soccer league for 14-year-olds named its teams after suicide bombers. Wafa Idris, the first female suicide bomber, became a heroine to many Palestinians after she blew herself up and killed an 81-year-old Israeli man and wounded 100 others four years ago.

Marcus, citing a textbook for eighth-graders that says "your enemies seek life and you seek death," called this sewer of propaganda "an impediment to peace."

That's an understatement. For years, conservative Israeli politicians were criticized when they claimed that "we don't have a partner for peace." When grandmothers strap explosives to themselves, and when children are taught to follow, the world must finally understand what they, and we, are up against.

Originally published on November 26, 2006 NY Daily News