The road to martyrs' square : a journey into the world of the suicide bomber
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Bibliographic Information
The road to martyrs' square : a journey into the world of the suicide bomber
Oxford University Press, 2005
- : cloth
- : pbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-198) and index
HTTP:URL=http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0417/2004008861.html Information=Table of contents
PHYS of pbk. edition: xxiii, 214 p., [64] p. of plates : ill. ; 23 cm
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: cloth ISBN 9780195116007
Description
In this unique study, the authors go deep into the world of the Palestinian group Hamas, in an effort to understand what motivates the young men of the movement to lay down their lives in suicidal act of murder. Oliver and Steinberg have conducted hundreds of interviews in Gaza and the West Bank, and gathered an immense archive of primary sources. These materials reveal the elaborated world-view of the movement and the means by which the call to martyrdom is successfully propagated. The authors focus on the case of a single boy, Hamza Abu-Surur. Commanded to carry out "a martyrdom action" against a crowded Israeli civilian bus, Abu-Surur records his last words and testament on videotape, to be sold on the street after his death as a monument to his sacrifice and an example to emulate. With the aid of ready-made scripts Abu-Surur has rehearsed and choreographed his own death many times. Oliver and Steinberg find echos of these scripts of martyrdom and defiance as far back as the Ottoman period, centuries rather than decades ago.
But while many aspects of Hamas are culture specific, they say, the impulses upon which it draws are more universal; for those who see themselves as powerless, they argue, the taking control of death hold out a seductive promise of personal and collective empowerment.
- Volume
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: pbk ISBN 9780195305593
Description
Don't expect to find here the usual cliches about suicide bombers and what drives them. In this unique study, Anne Marie Oliver and Paul Steinberg render the story of two intertwining, often clashing journeys. The authors lived for six months with a Palestinian refugee family in Gaza at the beginning of the intifada, and offer a gritty, poetic portrait of the time. They also provide an unrivalled documentary of the underground media they collected during the
course of six years in the area. Although they could not have surmised as such at the beginning, they soon found themselves led through these media into the world of the suicide bomber. Their early study, notably, anticipated the spread of suicide missions years in advance.
Dispensing with the platitudes and dogma that typify discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the authors show that the suicide bomber is a complex, contradictory construction, and can be explained neither in terms of cold efficacy nor sheer evil. Theirs is the only book on the subject to illustrate the ecstatic, intoxicating aspects of suicide missions, and provide extensive access to materials that have remained largely unseen in the West despite the fact that they have served as
indispensable tools in the construction and propagation of the suicide bomber. The book contains 86 illustrations drawn from the authors' archive as well as numerous conversations with leaders and followers of Hamas, including a rare interview with a suicide bomber whose bomb failed to explode on an
Israeli bus in Jerusalem.
Here is an important and timely work that will challenge the way we think about the intifada, suicide bombers, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
by "Nielsen BookData"