Suicide bombings/killing has become a modern tactic of war. Not a day goes by without our news carrying stories of recent suicide attacks. Increasingly, more and more women are using their bodies to deliver a blow attack. I went to Israel and the Occupied Territories to try and understand why women are choosing to give their lives in their struggle for freedom.
What we found in talking to the bombers' families and people in the community-and I want to limit this to the women whose stories we looked into-all of them had very traumatic personal stories and issues. Those things, combined with the horrors of living under occupation, could have provoked them to act. One terrorist, for example, was the first female suicide bomber in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, Wafa Idris. She was married off at a very young age and could not have kids. In that society a woman, a wife, who can't have kids is considered worthless. The husband divorced Wafa and married someone else and had kids with her. Wafa also worked with a humanitarian organization in the West Bank where she saw a lot of carnage from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You might say that she was a very depressed person.
It was obvious that all of the families were devastated by the death of their children, but they were also very careful in guarding what they were saying. Immediately they said, "our daughters did this because of the occupation. "When we prodded, some people defiantly maintained that position. But Wafa's mother, for example, said bluntly that if Wafa had been able to have kids, she probably wouldn't have killed herself.
A number of pregnant Chechen women have done this. It's terribly disturbing, and one would think that something had to be horribly wrong for someone to do that. There were even some allegations that some of these women were having extramarital affairs, which are not acceptable in that society. The bombers we investigated were vulnerable, broken women who saw no way out. They saw their lives on Earth as too difficult to handle, and when they reached that stage, in their minds, taking out the enemy was an opportunity to become a hero: Why not redeem myself and redeem my family's name? The parents don't really know. But most felt that their daughters most likely volunteered. In other cases the ones who are vulnerable are the ones who are chosen.
None of the parents we spoke with had any idea-and I believe that. Most people, when they commit suicide, don't alert others of their actions. It begs the question: Were these bombers committing suicide for the sake of committing suicide or solely trying to use it as a military tactic?
We asked a number of the families, and they said that they were not compensated for their daughters' actions. Whether that's true or not, we don't know. But they do enjoy a certain heroic status. Wafa Idris instantly became a hero. Huge parties were thrown-these funerals that are essentially like celebrations.
In some cases, female bombers have an advantage. In the occupied territories of Israel's West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, the Israelis have really put up some formidable barriers. They check and scrutinize everyone who comes across the border. But women suicide bombers are much less detectable. They are like stealth bombers. The Israelis often don't check them as thoroughly.
One point we're trying to make is that you can't rule anyone out these days. The stereotype of the face of terror is negligible. The people we're least likely to suspect, the givers of life, might be people who are dying to kill. We know that, so far, a number of women have killed themselves in Iraq, and you can't rule out the possibility that others will begin doing this in different parts of the world. The whole notion of conventional war has changed. How do you deal with individuals who aren't afraid of death, but are seeking it out? Maybe it would behoove us to try to learn more about who they are and what their motivations are. That's one of the reasons why we wanted to do this piece.
