This article, from The Globe and Mail, may tell you something about the Palestinian culture of hate and its recruitment of child martyrs. Shuhada (martyrdom) is glorified as an end in itself. It isn't even about nationalism anymore.
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How to make a martyr
It has been almost a year since an attractive 17-year-old school girl demonstrated just how ruthless the Palestinian suicide-bomb campaign against Israel has become. The political goal is clear enough but what motivates a young person such as Aayat al-Akhras to sacrifice herself in such a devastating fashion? In a bid to find out, MARGARET WENTE explores the desperate, turbulent world of the West Bank refugee
By MARGARET WENTE
Saturday, February 8, 2003 – Page F6
DHEISHEH, WEST BANK -- The tidy living room of the house where Aayat Al-Akhras grew up has been turned into a shrine. Pictures of her are displayed everywhere. A framed certificate of academic excellence hangs on the wall. On another wall is a poster-sized photograph accompanied by a traditional religious exhortation stitched in needlepoint. "God urges the believers to perform jihad against the enemy," it reads in Arabic. The poster is festooned with a string of tiny lights.
Aayat was the kind of daughter every parent would like to have. She was lovely, intelligent, studious and thoughtful. And then, one Friday afternoon last March, she strapped a belt of explosives to her body, slipped across the line that separates the West Bank from Jerusalem, took a taxi to a supermarket in a nearby shopping centre, and blew herself up.
As well as herself, she killed the store's security guard and a customer. Rachel Levy, like Aayat, was 17, lovely, studious and thoughtful with a promising future. The two lived only a few miles from each other. They could almost have been twins. In another world, they might have been friends.
In Israel, suicide bombers are always described as terrorists. In the occupied territories, they're called martyrs. But Aayat's mother says that, even though her daughter is celebrated as a hero, she is devastated that she chose a martyr's death. "I am angry with the people who recruited her," Khadra Kattous says with tears in her eyes. "I am a mother. I am upset with anybody who would destroy the life of my daughter."
She is sorry for Rachel's family too. "Rachel's mother is a mother like me," she says.
Aayat's father is more typical of Palestinian sentiment. Muhammad al-Akhras blames Israel for all the carnage. If innocents such as Rachel Levy die, he insists, the fault lies with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. His wife, however, blames their own side a little bit as well. "Before the P.A. [Palestinian Authority] came here, people just used to throw stones," she says bitterly.
Suicide bombing has become the Palestinians' terror weapon of choice. Since the fall of 2000, when the current intifada began, 92 human bombs, usually young and single, have detonated themselves in public places, killing themselves and 306 bystanders as well as injuring 2,087. There is no shortage of recruits -- would-be bombers are intercepted here almost every day. Last December, two attacks were successful, but Israeli security forces foiled 151 others.
But the tactic isn't working. Aayat could not have known it, but she was Mr. Sharon's best campaign weapon. Ten days ago, the political hard-liner was re-elected in a landslide because he vowed not to cave in to terror tactics. "They will never, never, never defeat us," says an Israeli woman I know who moved here from Canada two decades ago. "Don't they understand that?" Like many liberals, she couldn't bring herself to vote for Mr. Sharon. But secretly she hoped that he would win.
Some thoughtful Palestinians also are beginning to admit that terror has got them nowhere. They've paid a huge price. The borders between Israel and the occupied territories have been virtually shut down. Palestinians who worked in Israel have lost their jobs, and the economy is in ruins.
But in the schools and streets, even in the rich Arab Israeli towns whose residents are full citizens of Israel, the cult of martyrdom is as strong as ever. To answer my liberal friend's question: No, they don't understand that. And even though Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat officially condemns suicide bombings, he hasn't turned off the giant propaganda machine that urges teenagers and even kids in elementary school to seek Shahada: fulfilment in death for Allah.
Aayat al-Akhras was born in her family's house in Dheisheh, a refugee camp near Bethlehem. "Camp" is a misnomer. Most refugee settlements are permanent towns with paved streets and concrete-block houses. They are administered by an agency of the United Nations. They've been here for decades, as have their inhabitants.
Since the intifada,the economy has collapsed, but most people in Dheisheh are still fed and clothed, however meagrely. Teen girls mix fashions -- flared jeans, stylish boots and hijab.
Living conditions are terribly crowded, and people don't get more housing as their families grow. Aayat's parents somehow have raised 11 children -- four boys and seven girls -- in two rooms. But the worst thing about the camps is that people live in a state of suspended animation. Fifty-five years after the original refugees left their homes, their children and grandchildren are still waiting for the day when someone will come along and sort out their fate.
Small and neat, the living room of Aayat's house has eight upholstered sofas and chairs (each with a matching gauzy slipcover), two telephones, a compact stereo system and a computer that belongs to her father. It isn't working now so he goes to the Internet café to pick up his e-mail. In the other room is a TV. A daughter-in-law offers tea and coffee as Ms. Kattous and Mr. al-Akhras describe the last days of Aayat's life.
"She loved life," says her mother, who is wearing a black embroidered dress and plastic sandals. "She was an active person, always smiling. She was very popular."
She also did brilliantly in school and wanted to become a journalist. Not long before her death, she had been engaged but insisted that she be allowed to go to college after the marriage.
On the surface, the girl's life was smooth. But she was increasingly upset at the violence and unrest surrounding the intifada. "Aayat was heavily affected by the latest incursions -- the killings," her mother says. "When our neighbour was killed here right across the street, she started screaming. It was obvious she was deeply affected by what was going on."
You don't have to go far here to find people who have been hurt by the Israelis. A few doors away, Aayat's cousin, Lutfi, has a meagre little store. In 1996, he was shot in the head during a demonstration. He walks with a limp now, and his right hand is useless. He insists on showing me his medical report to prove what the Israelis did to him.
One day, after another suicide bombing (or "act of martyrdom," as Palestinians always call it), Aayat and her mother were watching the news on TV. "She was justifying that particular act," her mother says. "I said, 'It's none of your business and none of mine. It's your business to finish your studies and get married.' "
Instead, she secretly wrote a letter to the head of the al-Aqsa Brigades, a terrorist group active in Dheisheh, offering herself for martyrdom. At first, he turned her down, but she pressed until she persuaded him. Just before her mission, she had a photo taken of herself cradling a gun and wearing the kaffiyeh headgear so symbolic of Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement. Her family suspected nothing.
Aayat spent her last night on earth helping her mother cook dinner for her future in-laws, who had come to visit. Then she stayed up studying half the night for an exam the next day. She went to school, saw her friends, took the exam (she scored 20 out of 20), then slipped away.
It wasn't hard to get into Jerusalem. Even now, in many places there are no barriers between the West Bank and the city. I crossed over and back again by scrambling across an unguarded pile of rocks. Taxis wait on either side.
With a belt of explosives strapped around her waist, Aayat stepped over the border and caught one of the taxis. The driver was an Arab, and his presence was probably prearranged. From there, it was only a few minutes' drive along a well-travelled highway to the supermarket in the Kiryat Yovel district. The action had been planned for midday last March 29, a Friday when the store would be crammed with shoppers getting ready for the sabbath.
Near the entrance, two Arab women were selling produce. Aayat paused to whisper a warning. That was perhaps a mistake. By the time she made her way into the store, the security guard had grown suspicious. He pushed her outside, and she was forced to do it then and there.
Had she made it inside, the death toll would have been far higher. As it was, the blast injured 28 people and killed two Israelis -- the guard and Rachel Levy, whose whose mother had sent her out to stock up for Shabbat.
Rachel, a high-school senior, was an excellent pupil and an accomplished photographer. "She was a charming girl, always smiling and pleasant. simply a wonderful person," one family member said. "She loved books, music, and sports," said her mother, who now prefers not to speak publicly of her daughter's death. Rachel wasn't her family's first terror victim. A cousin had been killed a month earlier in a shooting attack near the town of Ofra.
Friday is also sacred to Islam, and that evening, Aayat's mother cooked a special meal. Her daughter was late coming home, but the family would wait. From the kitchen she heard someone scream in the room with the TV. She rushed out and saw that one of her sons had fainted. Aayat's name was on the screen.
Somewhere in the camp, she remembers, the celebratory shooting had already begun.
In a cramped office in downtown Jerusalem, half a dozen people are screening television programs broadcast in Arabic. They work for an independent outfit called Palestinian Media Watch, whose director, Itmar Marcus, shows me some video clips of material they've compiled from official PA TV. It chills the blood.
In one clip, the hero, a nice-looking schoolboy of about 11, leaves a farewell letter to his parents explaining that he has decided to achieve Shahada. The words "How sweet is Shahada when I embrace you, oh my land!" are sung as he falls, serene and bloodless, to the ground. "My beloved, my mother, my most dear, be joyous over my blood and do not cry for me," the song continues. This particular video, Mr. Marcus says, has been aired hundreds of times.
The most famous child shahid,or martyr, is a 12-year-old boy named Muhammad Al-Dura, who died on Sept. 30, 2000. Rather than commit suicide, he was caught in the crossfire between Palestinian snipers and Israeli soldiers, and his final moments were caught on camera and broadcast around the world. The images inflicted terrible damage on Israel's reputation.
After that, Mr. Marcus says, the leaders of the intifada figured dead children made for good public relations. In another commemorative video, a young actor portraying the dead boy calls upon more children to share his fate. The tape opens with a full-screen message in Arabic that reads, "I am waving to you not to part, but to say follow me," specifically to paradise, depicted as a fun-filled place with amusement parks, kites and beaches.
Recruitment aimed at teenage girls is relatively recent, but the glorification of female terrorists has deep roots. One of Palestine's cultural heroes is Dalal Mughrabi, a young woman who blew up a bus (but not herself) in 1978, killing 36 people. Today, summer camps, schools and college courses are named after her. Her life has been featured in a TV documentary and an 18-part newspaper series, and her name features in quiz shows and crossword puzzles. "Dalal," as the narrator of the documentary puts it, "is a symbol for the Palestinian nation."
Just over a year ago, Wafa Idris became the first Palestinian woman to blow herself up. Soon after she died on Jan. 27, 2002, a lavish concert video in her honour was broadcast on TV. "My sister Wafa," goes a song dedicated to her. "Oh, the heartbeat of pride, Oh, the blossom who was on the Earth and is now in Heaven." A school has been named after her, as well as a university course. The subject of the course is democracy and human rights.
The same process has begun with Aayat. Posters of her are plastered everywhere. A children's summer camp was named for her. And a few months after she died, there was a new television video, featuring a pretty teenage girl in military dress. She resembles Aayat. "I will even willingly fall as a shahid!" she sings, as teenagers throw stones and dance in the background.
Curiously, while all these messages emphasize martyrdom, they barely mention nationalism. "Shahada is not connected to any other goal," Mr. Marcus explains. "It is the goal."
The kids have bought the message. Last July, Palestinian TV broadcast an interview in which two bright, well-spoken 11-year-old girls expressed their longing for martyrdom. "Shahada is very, very beautiful," said a girl named Walla. "Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be better than going to paradise?"
"What is better," asked the host, "peace and full rights for the Palestinian people, or Shahada?
"Shahada. I will achieve my rights after becoming a shahida," the little girl responds.
Asked their opinion of Aayat, the girls express admiration -- although one says she thinks the teen should have finished her education first.
On a wall near Aayat's house, one of her many posters proclaims, in Arabic, that she "performed the act of martyrdom on the holy soil of Jerusalem. She managed to destroy the Israeli myth of indestructible security. Fatah honours her with these words."
On the street, I stop to chat with a girl about the same age as Aayat. She is pretty girl and wears flared jeans with platform shoes. It turns out the two were friends. "We could understand what Aayat did because she had a boldness about her," the girl says.
I ask how she feels about the blameless people her friend blew to bits. "I know Aayat is not a murderer," she replies serenely. "She felt for the ones who were younger than her" -- that is, Palestinian youngsters who have been victims of violence.
Could she imagine doing what Aayat did? "After you see what we've seen, all of us want to do what she did. But I don't have her courage."
Aayat's high school is a large, modern, airy building with a spectacular view of the hills around Jerusalem. A nearby wall bears a dove of peace and scrawled graffiti that reads "death to traitors." The principal would look at home at any high school in Canada. She isn't supposed to let in visitors without permission, but does so anyway. There's the usual display of student art near the entrance. All of it is political.
In the main hallways are two huge illustrations of Aayat. One, taken from her final martyr photo, shows her in kaffiyeh with a gun. I ask the principal if the students consider Aayat to be a hero. "Every person in our society considers her a hero," she says.
I ask if she is worried that the heroic posters might encourage other impressionable young girls to become terrorists.
"It's not meant to be a provocative act," she says of poster display. "It's one way of remembering her. It's meant to show respect and memory."
A visiting parent, Ahmad Sa'ad-Artas, agrees. "The pictures will never provoke us to act like this," he says heatedly. "There are stronger provocations. When our young people see people shot down -- that's what makes them do it!"
I press him about the death of innocent civilians. He says that upsets him very much. But, he explains at length, the Palestinians have become desperate. If innocent Israelis die, it's Israel's fault. It is the response I hear a hundred times over.
What motivates a girl like Aayat to blow herself up? I'm beginning to get a glimpse of it. An ardent and passionate young woman, seeking meaning and significance, grows up in a culture in which, she is told, everything is hopeless. Evidence of enemy atrocities is all around her. It seems there is nothing she can do. And yet, there is something after all, something huge. She can sacrifice herself to an ideal that is far greater than she is. Death, the culture tells her at every turn, is glorious.
While he was Israel's defence minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer also wondered what motivates suicide bombers. To find out, he went to a prison last June and sat across the table from a young woman named Arin Ahmed. An Israeli newspaper captured the entire interview on tape.
Now 20, Arin is much like Aayat, with one big difference: She changed her mind. She once studied computer programming at Bethlehem University, where Aayat planned to enroll in journalism. Fluent in English, she is articulate and bright. Last March, her boyfriend Jad, a member of the Tanzim street militia, was killed by Israeli gunfire. (The Israelis say he was attempting to prepare a car bomb.)
Arin sent a message to a senior Tanzim militant that she was ready to avenge her beloved. The offer was accepted immediately. "They didn't let me think about it too much," she recalled. "They pressured me and persuaded me. They told me: 'You'll gain a very special status among the women suicide bombers. You'll be a real heroine. It's for Jad's memory. You'll be reunited with him in Paradise.' "
Why, then, did she change her mind?
"I got out of the car. The place wasn't exactly like I'd seen on the map. I saw a lot of people, mothers with children, teenage boys and girls. I remembered an Israeli girl my age whom I used to be in touch with. I suddenly understood what I was about to do and I said to myself: 'How can I do such a thing?' "
The terrorists had sent a 16-year-old boy out with her. He had second thoughts too. But they screamed at him through a cellphone, and he blew himself up before her eyes.
After she decided she wasn't going to do it, she said the terrorists were very angry with her. They tried to get her to carry out another attack. "But I'd already changed my mind and given up the whole idea. I stayed at home, until your forces came and arrested me." One of her handlers had been captured.
"And now what?" the defence minister asked.
"And now I'm here. It was a mistake. It's wrong to kill people and children. Doing something like that is forbidden. There's no way I would do it. And the fact is, I didn't do it." Then she begged him not to let one terrible mistake destroy the rest of her life.
Afterward, Mr. Ben-Eliezer said he was convinced of her sincerity. And he had a few comments about the making of a suicide bomber. "The military actions kindle the frustration, hatred and despair and are the incubator for the terror to come. The religious and political environment immediately exploits this and dispatches the new suicide bombers and the pattern is repeated." Vulnerable young girls are easy pickings. "The environment exploits fragile personalities and gets them swept up in a current."
Several granddaughters have come to play in the living room as Aayat's parents sip their tea and talk. One girl is playing with a pink plastic gun. Shahid games, Itmar Marcus tells me later, are popular with little kids these days. Another girl is chattering into a pink plastic cell phone. "She's pretending to talk to her uncle in jail," he grandfather explains.
The family has suffered since Aayat's death. Samir and another brother are in jail, and the security police regularly search the house. They wanted to tear it down (the standard retaliation for a suicide bombing), but the family found a Jewish lawyer who persuaded Israel's Supreme Court to grant a reprieve. The judges said the houses on either side would be damaged.
However, another piece of good news has turned bad. The couple thought they were on their way to Mecca, with the cost of the pilgrimage covered by generous unnamed sympathizers, but learned this week that they won't be permitted to make the trip.
Meanwhile, the army has come down hard. The al-Aqsa leader who recruited Aayat is in jail too, and the other militants in Dheisheh have been either killed or arrested. The suicide bombers they dispatched were responsible for more than 30 civilian deaths.
The harsh deterrence seems to be working across the board. It has been almost a month since the last successful attack. Three-quarters of Palestinians continue to express approval for suicide bombings, but there is growing disagreement over their tactical effectiveness. Israel has not caved in. The supermarket where Aayat set off her bomb is as busy as ever.
Yet anyone who hopes for an end to terror here hopes in vain. The terrorist groups have multiplied, and all of them are armed, and they all want to protect their turf. Palestinian society is deeply dysfunctional, unemployment is sky-high, and the culture of hate runs deep. The population of disaffected young people -- prime recruiting material for human sacrifice -- is exploding. A peace deal is essential to both sides, but no peace deal, and no amount of security, will end the fear. Some terrorists will always get through.
This land lies along the fault line where the Muslim world meets the West, and the tensions between the two will not be resolved any time soon. One of the photos displayed in the living room of Aayat's family home is the now-famous martyr shot -- the one of their beautiful daughter fondling the gun. Aayat's mother explains that they saw it only after she was dead. But Aayat had another studio portrait taken too. It shows a thoroughly modern young woman, dressed in flared blue jeans, her long brown hair uncovered, poised saucily against a backdrop of the Manhattan skyline.
Two versions of Aayat: two utterly incompatible futures. The old world or the new. The medieval or the modern. The cult of death or the culture of life. She chose one. And she might have had the other.
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