Suicide Bombers

What is the relationship between Mizrahi feminism and Israeli ultranationalism? What is the relevance of gender justice activism to the 2014 Gaza War and Israel’s foreign policy?

Wrapped in the Flag of Israel Second Edition examines neoliberal bureaucracy in the Global South using feminist critical race theories. It interrogates the relationship between the State of Israel and its Mizrahi single mothers who are at the forefront of Mizrahi feminism. It also presents a model of bureaucracy as divine cosmology that preempts the agency of disenfranchised Mizrahim who are Israel’s demographic majority. Mizrahi protests fall flat when the Israel-Palestine conflict dominates the headlines. While most studies of neoliberal bureaucracy employ a Foucauldian or Marxian lens, this book illustrates how Israeli bureaucracy draws on a theological essence that fuses religion, gender, and race into the foundations of citizenship. It sets out to understand why Mizrahi mothers remain loyal to a state that injures them though its bureaucratic system.

The extensive Afterword to the Second Edition connects intra-Jewish racial and gendered dynamics to the 2014 Gaza War. It tracks sequences that began with social protest and ended with elections that bolstered Israel’s political right. In between came bloodletting between the IDF, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel’s neighboring Arab states. The 2014 Gaza War was a watershed, but not only in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Under the smokescreen of war, Israel accelerated neoliberal economic reform. The first victims of this restructuring were Mizrahi single mothers. Palestinians, however, would pay the highest price for Israel’s Mizrahi-Ashkenazi rift.

Embracing the tactic of suicide bombings first in 2003, the Taliban in Afghanistan quickly emerged as the leading terrorist group in the world that has claimed responsibility for such bombings. Over a period of more than 10 years, the group has indiscriminately carried out hundreds of suicide bombings across the country. How have the Taliban managed to operationalize one of the most notorious bombing tactics against all the existing social and cultural odds of Afghan society? To answer this question, this study, by applying qualitative thematic analysis, examined the contents of the Taliban's written and audiovisual materials on suicide bombings. Two dominant narratives, namely "Istish-haadi" [seeking martyrdom] and "love to death, " that are at the core of the Taliban's produced literature on suicide bombings, have supplied the group with dispensable human bombs. These bombers, the study concludes, are "dying to live".

Armed conflicts and violence have always been concomitant with human history but it is undeniable that our perception of them has undergone some disturbing evolution of late. Whereas in the past wars and organized violence were mainly regarded as being temporary, that is, originating in a number of reasons and tensions that might become eventually solved and confined to very specific zones on the world map, nowadays most people feel that nobody can escape the scourge of indiscriminate violence and this is mainly due to terrorism, in particular to that associated with Muslim fundamentalism. The aim of this paper will be to discuss the origins of this form of terrorism, together with its inextricable relationship with the so-called ‘civilized’ West, putting the emphasis on its more secular aspects and implications so as to show how Tabish Khair’s novel, Just Another Jihadi Jane denounces the effects that this conflict can have upon average people, all the more so if they happen to be ...

The increasing visibility of armed women in violent conflicts in the modern world has unsettled conventional beliefs of inferiority, weakness, innocence, and the resultant fragility and victimhood of women. Although in theory it is possible to conceptualize armed woman and violence as empowerment, in practice, the temporal realities that inevitably haunt any discussion of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ in conflict ridden polarized societies severely curtail the terminology available to frame militancy in general and the ‘terror’ it generates as ‘liberatory’. However, fictional and non-fictional literary work that were published in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s war (1983-2009) between the state forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) seem to push the boundaries of the discourse on women, violence, and terror. This paper analyzes the representation of armed women in The Seasons of Trouble (Mohan, 2014), Island of a Thousand Mirrors (Munaweera, 2014), Tamil Tigress (De Soyza, 2013), and Under the Shadow of a Sharp Edged Sword (trans.) (Jeyakumaran, 2016) with the assumption that the genres of auto/biography and fiction offer an alternative archive within which seemingly polarized ‘truths’ entrenched in nationalist conflicts can be explored in their nuanced complexity. This paper assesses how literary portrayals of female militancy vis-à-vis violence, empowerment, and victimhood challenge conventional history and narratives and, in doing so, contribute to expand the boundaries of our understanding of female militancy in times of violent conflict. In conclusion, this paper suggests that the location of violence and female militancy within an ambivalent space of agency in narrative literature may also entail an unsettling of conventional figurations of war in gendered terms.

The article focuses on the increased procedural mobility of world citizens in the twenty first century. The rationality of the United States war on terror requires that each travelling individual be seen as a potential threat, pitting the citizen against his or her own state. The views of political scientist David Lyon on the effects of technology on the relationship between citizen and state are presented. The implications of the PATRIOT Act are discussed, as well as the power relationships explored by Michel Foucault.

Ariel Merari purports to demonstrate a tendency on the part of suicide bombers to be
motivated by depression and suicidal tendencies. However, he misconstrues the present
authors’ critique of his work and misinterprets their research. By clarifying both issues,
this article seeks to substantiate three claims: (1)Merari’s sampling procedure precludes
generalization; (2) interviewer and contextual effects probably bias his findings; (3)
evidence challenges his inferences.

Recent work by Ariel Merari argues that, while certain contextual factors increase the
probability of suicide attacks, they do not explain why particular individuals become
suicide bombers. Merari seeks to demonstrate that suicide bombers are motivated by an
unusually high prevalence of depression and suicidal tendencies. This article questions
the representativeness of Merari’s sample. It raises the possibility that interviewer and
contextual effects contaminated his findings. Finally, it presents evidence that challenges
Merari’s conclusions. This evidence is drawn from interviews with immediate family
members and close friends of a 25 percent random sample of Palestinian suicide bombers
who conducted attacks between 2000 and 2005. Based on their analysis, the authors
question the value of a psychological approach to the study of suicide bombers and
assert the importance of focusing on the political and social roots of the phenomenon.

Terror Management Theory (TMT) contends that while self-preservation is common to all species, only humans are aware of their own mortality.  This awareness is terrifying, both consciously and unconsciously and needs to be managed.  Terror management seeks to explain a wide variety of human behaviours, amongst others, intolerance and subjectivity and provide answers to how the construction of meaning achieved by individuals within a culture fulfills the double function of protecting against the fear of death and allowing, at the same time, creative expansion and development.  Tom Pyszczynski’s TMT theory got media attention after the events of the 9/11 that took the world by surprised and deeply shocked it. Are women prone to harsher reactions than men, including self-sacrifice, when their worldview is challenged, or are those but a western idea and explanation?

Salafist Jihadists circumvent the Islamic prohibition against self-destruction in order to legitimize suicide attacks around the globe. They do so by departing from their strict constructionist orientation to textual authority, and instead rely on ta'wil (allegorical interpretation) to make the case for the permissibility of suicide as martyrdom. Surprisingly, this blatant contradiction between their hyper-textual method (manhaj) and their innovative construal of scripture is rarely pointed out. Jihadists have elevated their interpretive capacity of imprecise scripture (ayat mutashabihat) above settled doctrine based on clear verses (ayat muhkamat) and absolute rulings (ahkam qat'iya).

This paper will analyze the phenomenon of Suicide Bombing by showing the extent of their motivations as perceived by both by the victims and the perpetrators, as well as the use of stereotypes by media and scholars from both sides of the spectrum. Finally, the paper will assess and compare the psychological impact female suicide bombers have on their chosen victim, as opposed to their male counterparts.

Die Medien berichten regelmäßig über Selbstmordattentate im Irak, in Pakistan und Afghanistan. Eine geringere mediale Aufmerksamkeit erhalten gewaltfreie Formen des Selbstopfers wie die Selbstverbrennung und das Todesfasten. Jenseits von Spekulationen, Kulturalisierungen und Pathologisierungen nähert sich der Autor diesem keineswegs seltenen Phänomen auf empirischer Basis. Anhand einer Analyse ausgewählter Abschiedsnachrichten und Märtyrervideos wird herausgearbeitet, wer die Adressaten eines solchen Aktes sind, welche Handlungserwartungen an diese gestellt werden und unter welchen Bedingungen der eigene Tod zu einer „Medienwaffe“ werden kann.

The gender-based violence in recent times has become an integral part of the ongoing Boko Haram Insurgency in NorthEast Nigeria. Since the full-scale declaration of combat between the Nigerian state and the insurgent group, the asymmetrical tactics of the group have been evolving, based on its capabilities. The recent spike in the targeted raid and attack on female schools, markets, and female institutions purposely for abduction and kidnapping of women and girls indicated this assertion. Due to the depletion of its fighters and loss of territories, there is a surge in mass deployment of 'women and young girls' as material instruments of warfare: fighters, suicide bombers, human shields, bargaining tools, sex slaves, informants, and so on. This article appraises the gender push-pull factors responsible, motivation behind the current behavior, and proffers some policy guidance.

In this essay the well-known French researcher Olivier Roy points out how terroristic attacks with Islamic background has become a systematic increase. He has laid the focus on France. Especially the Islamic State(IS) deals with a re-evaluation of "jihad" to "jihadism". The call for a return to true and genuine Islam against all false believers and against the West lead  to a legitimation of terrorism using all military and brutal instruments. This means an islamisation of radicalism.  IS has not succeeded in the planned globalisiation of jihadism, but the suicid bombers spread out the fear of Islam in the West. Therefore the radicalisation of endangered men and women must be prevented.