Arafat™s Suicide Factory
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
December 9, 2001
In declaring his own war on terrorism last week, Israel's Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon made a surprising claim. He said that
Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, "is responsible for
everything that is happening here," a reference to the onslaught of
four suicide operations that had just left 26 Israelis dead and some
200 wounded.
To which one might reasonably ask: Why blame Arafat?
No one blames President Bush for the catastrophe on Sept. 11 or
other politicians for the terrorism that occurs on their watch. Why
should it be different with Arafat? Isn't Sharon unfair?
Let's look at the evidence.
Every inquiry into Palestinian suicide attacks, and especially
Nasra Hassan's remarkable report in a recent issue of The New
Yorker, finds that these do not just happen spontaneously but
result from a large and sophisticated infrastructure.
This infrastructure exists for one reason: to make normal men
want to die. Because Islamic law prohibits suicide, a suicidal
person cannot be recruited to go on a mission. Rather, it is
(perversely) necessary to dispatch only those who are not suicidal.
Islamic Jihad, which along with Hamas trains the suicide killers,
explains: "We do not take depressed people. If there were a one-
in-a-thousand chance that a person was suicidal, we would not
allow him to martyr himself. In order to be a martyr bomber, you
have to want to live." The same strange logic applies for Hamas,
which rejects anyone "who commits suicide because he hates the
world."
Convincing healthy individuals to blow themselves up is
obviously not easy, but requires ideas and institutions. The
process begins with the Palestinian Authority (PA) inculcating
two things into its population, starting with the children: a hatred
of Jews and a love of death. School curricula, camp activities, TV
programming and religious indoctrination all portray Israelis in a
Nazi-style way, as sub-human being worthy of killing; and then
deprecate the instinct for self-preservation, telling impressionable
young people that sacrificing their lives is the most noble of all
goals.
The system works: Hassan reports that "hordes of young men"
clamor to be sent to their own obliteration. Hamas and Islamic
Jihad have established a process of selection based in the
mosques, where "a notably zealous youth" ready for martyrdom
gets noted by clerics who recommend him for selection.
Those who make the cut enter a protracted, highly supervised, and
disciplined regimen of spiritual studies and military-like training.
These adepts are taught to see suicide operations as a way to
"open the door to Paradise" for themselves and their families. "I
love martyrdom" says one such "living martyr."
Just before setting off on an attack, the men engage in exquisitely
pious preparations (ablutions, clean clothing, a communal prayer
service). Their deaths are celebrated by Hamas or Islamic Jihad by
orchestrating a festive funeral celebration ("as if it were a
wedding," Hassan observes) and distributing video cassettes with
a statement from beyond the grave. The sponsoring organizations
then make sure that the family receives both social kudos and
financial rewards.
These facts tell us three things: Militant Islamic suicide killers are
not born; they are manufactured. Like the four simultaneous
suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, the four nearly simultaneous
suicide attacks in Israel last week resulted from long-term
planning by sophisticated organizations. They cannot operate
clandestinely, but require the permission of a ruling authority,
either the Taliban or the PA.
All of which leads to the conclusion that Sharon was right to hold
Arafat responsible for the onslaught of suicide attacks on Israelis.
This, in turn, has an implication for the war on terrorism. No less
than in Afghanistan, the American goal must be to shut down the
suicide factory in the Palestinian areas.
And while it would be wonderfully convenient if Yasir Arafat
could be delegated this task, the chances of his doing this are
about as likely as the Taliban getting rid of Al-Qaeda - in other
words, nil. Arafat has been in the business of murdering Israelis
for nearly four decades; he does not deserve yet another chance.
Fortunately, unlike other parts of the world where Americans have
to fight terrorism on their own, in this case an ally - Israel - is
ready and willing to fight terrorism on its own. The time has come
to urge it to do just that.
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