The individual attacker, faced with unbearable psychological pressures, copes with the situation in a desperate, though understandable, manner. The suicide bomber, like others driven by emotional distress, is purported to exhibit a predictable clinical response.

  Such portrayals transform murderers into victims, diminishing the revulsion one feels at such attacks. Worse, by defining suicide bombing as an "illness," the bomber is effectively relieved of any personal responsibility for the behavior.

  The "bomber as victim" model has led others to similarly view, and incorrectly justify, the motivations behind Palestinian-Arab suicide bombers. In fact, individual psycho-pathology or personal feelings do not appear to play any significant role.

  A 2001 CIA report on the psychology and sociology of terrorism finds that suicide terrorists are perfectly sane. Most often, such extreme acts are perpetrated by middle-class or higher-middle-class intellectuals.

  Ariel Merari, terrorism expert and psychologist at Tel Aviv University, interviewed suicide bombers who were wounded but survived whose bombs failed to detonate, as well as their families or recruiters. Like most psychologists in the 1980's, he thought that this was individual pathology, like the idea that racists come from fatherless families or have a history of family trouble. His research surprisingly showed that bombers are normal. Generally they are better educated than is the norm for their society and benefit from above average incomes. 1

  Mohammed Al-Ghoul, the inspiration for this web site, who killed himself and 19 others on a Jerusalem bus carrying high-school students and office workers, is a perfect illustration. Mohammed, 21, from a relativley well-to-do family near Nablus, had recently begun pursuing a Master's Degree in Islamic studies at An Najah University.

  Mohammed left behind a note explaining his actions. In the note, Ghoul said he'd tried twice before to stage attacks, but didn't explain why he'd failed.

"I am happy that my body will be the response for the attacks conducted by the Israelis and that my body will turn into an explosive shred mill against the Israelis"

"How beautiful it is to make my bomb shrapnel kill the enemy. How beautiful it is to kill and to be killed not to love death, but to struggle for life, to kill and be killed for the lives of the coming generation"

  Next to his name, Mohammed wrote "Izzedine al Qassam," the military wing of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack.

  Suicide terrorism is as old as the Zealots, who 2,000 years ago mounted suicide attacks in Roman-occupied Judea. A brief survey of the use of suicide as a weapon will dispel the notion that bombers are mentally ill and desperate:

  The diaries of WWII Japanese kamikaze pilots show them to be intelligent German romantics who read Goethe and Schiller, quite conscious of the efforts of the state to manipulate them. Self-sacrifice was considered as the ultimate weapon against the enemy. The pilots were driven by a desire to sacrifice for their country, and did not display any signs of typical clinically abnormal behavior.

  Letters written by Kamikaze pilots show evidence of extraordinary calm and peaceful spirit prior to their missions. The Kamikaze pilot expected something beyond death itself from a mission that unavoidably culminated in death.2 Motivation for Kamikaze missions came not from any negativism or a personal desire to end one's life, but rather from a motivation and group identity related to giving all for the Emperor and one's country. As described by Taylor and Ryan, "the individual pilots who undertook such missions were far from defeatist."3

  Japanese public schools of that era, like many in the Islamic world today, were drenched in the propaganda of achieving virtue through the sacrificing of life. Unlike the Islamist human bombs, the kamikazes were promised no virgins in the afterlife, but were told in death they would find eternal happiness. One pilot, who was turned down as a kamikaze because he had a wife and children, returned home to find that his wife had killed herself and their two children, age two and four, to free her husband to do what he needed to do. He flew to his death five months later.

  The Tamil Tigers, a secular group devoted to establishing an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka, have been responsible for more suicide attacks than any other terrorist group in history.7 Their fighters are described as fierce, well trained, and totally dedicated to their cause. Before a mission, they are given cyanide pills in order to prevent the possibility of divulging military secrets if taken alive.4 Volunteers are chosen according to their combat records. They Tigers are highly nationalistic who employ both males and females as "human bombs." Nowhere are Tamil fighters described as suffering from any psychological issues that lead to their choice to volunteer for these missions. On the contrary, the suicide bomber is described by a Tamil leader as having "a mind like steel but a heart like the petals of a flower."5

  Southeast Asian Buddhist monks practicing self-immolation in the 1960's are another example of politically-motivated suicide. These acts never involved any attacks on others, but carried a definite political message. The earliest of these acts took place in 1963 when Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk, set himself on fire in South Vietnam. Press accounts and photos of such acts that followed, were extremely effective as a means to influence public opinion and served to raise political consciousness against the repressive Catholic regime in South Vietnam. The clinical symptoms that typically motivate conventional suicide were not at play here. "This is not suicide....The monk who burns himself has lost neither courage nor hope; nor does he desire nonexistence. On the contrary, he is very courageous and hopeful and aspires for something good in the future. He does not think that he is destroying himself; he believes in the good fruition of his act of self-sacrifice for the sake of others."6

  In none of the above examples was the political or military purpose of the suicide ever clouded by a message of desperation, hopelessness, or clinically driven illness. In all cases, the perpetrators were first and foremost focused on the attack, motivated by nationalism and group identity and not by any personal emotional variables that may have led them to this extreme behavior. In the political or military aftermath of these suicides, no attempt was ever made to frame the behavior in the language of psycho-pathology or sociological opportunism. Only in the case of Palestinian terror has there been an attempt to personalize the perpetrator as a victim of uncontrollable psychological and motivational forces that forced such extreme behavior.

  Palestinian terrorists themselves have denied any link between clinical psychological symptoms and their attacks. As stated by one such terrorist, "This is not suicide. Suicide is selfish, reflects mental weakness. This is istishad (martyrdom or self-sacrifice in the service of Allah)."7

  Anthropologist Scott Atran, citing Defense Intelligence Agency profiles of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reveals that they are divided into Yemenis and Saudis. The Yemenis are the "foot soldiers." Saudis, generally in leadership roles, are from high-status families. Many have graduate degrees. They are willing to sacrifice all. They give up well-paying jobs, their families, whom they adore, to sacrifice themselves as the only way they're going to change the world. 1

  Professor Atran describes suicide bombing as a tactical weapon that is employed when an ideologically devoted group finds that it cannot gain its objective by other means. A group, finding itself in a very weak position turns to extreme methods.

  He describes the typical profile of a suicide terrorist, "Generally, it's not someone who is off the wall. They can't be effective killers. Usually it is someone who is smart, who shows a willingness to give up something, who is patient, who is quiet. Competent people who don't draw attention to themselves, and who are perfectly willing and able to meld into society."

  Bombers also lack a violent streak says Dr. Eyad Sarraj, a Muslim psychiatrist who has treated many families of suicide bombers in Gaza. "[Suicide bombers] usually were very timid people, introverted, their problem was always communication…They were not violent at all." The young men can overcome their shyness by becoming the heroes they worship – suicide bombers who become icons on posters just like sports stars. "In my tee-nage time, my symbols were body builders and movie stars and singers," Sarraj tells Simon. "Then it changed…the fighter…the stone thrower... today it is the martyr." 13

  When asked what makes a person blow himself up, Dr. Atran replied, "Exactly the same way that you get soldiers on the front line of an army to sacrifice themselves for their buddies. What these cells do is very similar to what our military, or any modern military, does. They form small groups of intimately involved "brothers" who literally sacrifice themselves for one another, the way a mother would do for her child. They do it by manipulating universal heartfelt human sentiments that I think are probably innate and part of biological evolution..."

  "In the case of something like Al Qaeda, you've got these people in groups of three to eight people, for 18 months, isolated from their family, getting this intense and deep ego-stroking propaganda. You do that to anyone, and you'll get him to do what you want. There are all these studies that psychologists have done of torturers on all sides of the political divide. A very famous one is on ordinary Greeks who became torturers during the military junta of 1967 to 1974. They found they were perfectly ordinary - in fact, above-average intelligence. They'd get them to be torturers by indoctrinating them, by showing them how necessary they were for their societies, and getting these people to believe it."

  It is actually group dynamics that reinforces behavior within a Palestinian-Arab culture where suicide bombers are viewed as heroes whose faces are prominently displayed on public posters and where families of bombers are showered with both respect and financial reward.

  In a series of interviews with would-be suicide bombers, Dr. Jerold Post of George Washington University describes how group pressure and identity motivates terrorists to action: "Group members psychologically manipulated the new recruits, persuading them, psychologically manipulating them, "brainwashing" them to believe that by carrying out a suicide bombing, they would find an honored place in the corridor of martyrs, and their lives would be meaningful; moreover, their families would be financially rewarded. From the time they were recruited, the group members never left their sides, leaving them no opportunity of backing down from their fatal choice." As stated by Post, "Terrorism is not a consequence of individual psychological abnormality. Rather it is a consequence of group or organizational pathology that provides a sense-making explanation to the youth drawn to these groups." 7

  While clinical psychological symptoms may not be a factor in the motivation of the suicide bomber, general psychological techniques do play a role in creating the group psychology that fosters this behavior. With respect to Palestinian groups, these factors include a culture where suicide bombers are viewed as heroes and where families of bombers are showered with both respect and financial reward. Unlike the shame of traditional suicide victims, the faces of suicide attackers are prominently displayed throughout Palestinian areas on public posters heralding their behavior.

  Palestinian apologists resorting to the "bomber-as-victim" model explain that shehadin (martyrs), most often young, single men (recently women have joined the ranks of "martyrs"), represent the desperation of the occupation. As such, they have attempted to promote the notion of personal psychological suffering as the force behind the group political act of confrontation through suicide attacks. The attack is transformed from one of political violence intentionally perpetrated on others, to one where the attacker is also a victim, driven by a combination of psychological variables such as humiliation, depression, and hopelessness. What results is an attempt to present a popularized message that many people can relate to, namely, extreme measures taken in response to extreme provocation.

  Such an approach is, in fact, not a de-politicization, but in fact represents an attempt to actually politicize the act by erroneously ascribing it to personal and clinical aspects of the behavior. In March 2001 Palestinian Authority spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi stated, "if you push the Palestinians into a corner, if you drive them to desperation, there will be desperate acts."8 A year later, in a similar remarks, "the people who do it are people who are individuals or small groups who are driven to desperation and anger by the Israeli activities."9 The suicide bomber is individually "driven" by an emotional state akin to clinical symptoms of other suicide victims, rather than acting as a member of a group with a clearly defined political purpose and goal. To Western ears, such an interpretation makes inherent sense, since suicide for political or religious reasons is difficult to fathom, while ending one's life as a result of other "desperate" reasons is far more common and understandable.

  This theme vindicates those that cast suicide bombers in the role of victims as a result of psychological pressure rather than perpetrators of politically motivated murder. "Suicide bombings and all these forms of violence - I'm talking as a doctor here - are only the symptoms, the reaction to this chronic and systematic process of humiliating people in an effort to destroy their hope and dignity. That is the illness, and unless it is resolved and treated, there will be more and more symptoms of the pathology."10

  Portraying the perpetrator as a victim suffering from a clinical pathology not only diminishes the impact of one's revulsion at such attacks; it also serves to refocus the reason for the attack from a group desire to violently confront the enemy to a personal desire to escape from unbearable individual suffering. By defining suicide bombing as an "illness," the bomber is effectively relieved of any personal responsibility for the behavior. In this case, responsibility for the "illness" is suggested to be with the environment breeding the "symptoms," namely Israeli policy.

  Despite these pronouncements, attempts to represent the suicide bomber as primarily motivated by psychological or sociological (as opposed to political or nationalistic) variables are simply not supported by the evidence. While suicide in the traditional clinical sense is indeed related to an individual's psychological state at the time of the act, the acts of Palestinian terror organizations, as the acts of other politically motivated groups in recent history, in no way relate to individual clinical psycho-pathology or conventional suicide.

  Popular explanations that describe suicide bombers as desperate, hopeless individuals are not corroborated by actual experience and findings in the field. Suicide bombers are well motivated to carry out their acts and strongly dedicated to the political message of their cause. While they may feel oppressed, the stimulus for the act is nationalistic and political, not psycho-pathological and clinical. In the case of Islamic terror, one must consider the religious and,often, (for the "bereaved" family) financial rewards of becoming a shahid.

  Pronouncements espousing the ideas of individual clinical symptoms and emotional distress as motivations of the bomber, a political message is being created. As with the act of suicide bombing itself, this message is aimed at rallying support against the governmental or institutional target of the attack and fostering sympathy for the political purposes of the suicide bombing. In effect, the focus of attention is moved from the victim to the perpetrator, mitigating the negative effects and terror aspect of the act itself. Despite the distaste that suicide attacks create, the use of the "bomber as victim" model by Palestinian spokespersons has led others to similarly view, and partially although incorrectly justify, the motivations behind Palestinian suicide bombers.

  The politicization and popularization of psychological factors has led some to rename these attacks as "homicide attacks." The term was first used when President George Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, stated, "Israel, of course, had been attacked in a series of suicide bombings which are really homicide bombings."11

  The terminology used is not insignificant, as "suicide" raises images of individual distress while "homicide" creates an image of a more insidious, criminal motivation that indeed reflects on basic issues of right and wrong and good versus evil. In the media, some have turned to using the term to describe terror activities that result in the death of the perpetrator as well as the intended targets. For the most part, however, media outlets, including Israeli media sources, continue to use the term "suicide" attack.

  A corollary of the use of the term "suicide" attack is the tendency for some media to include the death of the bomber in casualty counts following a bombing. The subtle effect of this type of reporting is to associate the death of the perpetrator with that of the others, making them all "victims" in the eye of the reader or observer. Particularly egregious are media accounts that seek to exploit the superficial similarities between perpetrator and victim, again implying some sort of commonality. In one such account, the Associated Press declared, "Mirror Images: Two Teen-Age Girls, Bomber and Victim."12 While this may make for eye-catching headlines, these reports obfuscate the actual intended political purpose of the attack.

  As a descriptive term, "suicide" simply indicates that the attacker intended to die in the attack. While the use of the term itself bears no political significance, the "spin" provided often does. Any attempt to imply or infer individual emotional distress as a primary factor in these acts, however, is without any evidentiary support.

  Whether or not any individual or media source uses the term "suicide" or "homicide" in describing Palestinian terror attacks, explanations for these attacks that personalize the attacker's motivation or assumed psychological state deviate from historical and research-based experience that shows these acts to be driven by nationalism and political need. While alternative explanations may have a political purpose, they fail to have any empirically based foundation in reality.

  For more information see Bohaz Ganor, "Suicide Terrorism: An Overview of Palestinian Bombers" and "The Characteristics of Suicide Terrorists: An Empirical Analysis of Palestinian Terrorism in Israel".