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The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers

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At the height of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States were absolutely bitter and vicious opponents, their agents and operatives worked against each other in every possible way- but they did not go about killing themselves. The natural assumption of people in the U.S. the former Soviet Union, and my guess is almost everywhere, is that people want to live.
But today we live in a world where something unheard of , even two decades ago, is happening. Every day whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, people are blowing themselves up in order to murder others, who most people in the world would consider, civilians, innocent outsiders.
Now Anat Berko an Israeli researcher has made a pioneering study of the phenomenom. She has based her research on interviews with a large number of jailed would- be suicide bombers, with their handlers or dispatchers. She provides a great deal of new insight into the problem even I suspect for those who have been following the problem for some time now.
Berko makes a firm distinction between the 'dispatchers' and the 'suicide- bombers'. The former are the strong ones, the ideologues, the ones who often convince the suicide- bombers to operate. The suicide- bombers often are weak personalities, with family- problems which they hope to solve by the suicide- bombing. Often they are young people whose sexual identity has not formed, and who are moved by the prospect of seventy- black-eyes clear- skinned virgins as their reward in Paradise. They too may come from families with a certain stigma, and often their action may be a way of restoring the honor of the family in the general society.
Berko also connects the dramatic rise in suicide- bombing with the Islamic war on Western culture. The West is perceived as libertine, corrupt, decadent. Against its temptations Islamic young people are instructed to make heroic actions of self- sacrifice, jihad. Berko by the way points out that Koranic sources both forbid suicide and the murder of innocent women and children. But that these sources are overridden by modern religious teachers who frame everything in terms of the house of Islam's total war against the corrupt and decadent West.
Berko alarmingly points out that in propaganda terms, on the Internet, and through most of the major media it is the radical Islamists who predominate and attract. Like many others she calls for more moderate voices, which belong to so many, to have greater force.
In any case this present book is an extremely important one for all who would understand a major element, however negative in our present world- situation and reality.

"The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and Their Dispatchers" by Israeli Lt. Col. Anat Berko , 2009. Over several years, this female author (who has a Ph.D. in criminology) was permitted to interview dozens of Palestinians who had been trained to engage in a suicide-bombing mission against some Israeli population target, or one who had recruited them. The author asked both male and female Islamikazes as to what motivated them to engage in their potential death act of strapping explosives upon their bodies and then detonating them amongst military, but most likely, civilian targets? The author learned that many of the male bombers believed that they would be wedded in Paradise (Heaven) with the virginal Houris, while the females stated their interest in achieving certain entry into Paradise to meet with Allah. While they spoke of their `reward' that they would receive in Paradise, many of them stated that what prompted their mission was their opposition to `oppressive' Israeli `occupation' of Muslim lands on the West Bank. The author found `lonely hearts' amongst both the males and females, some wanted to `get back' at either their father or mother for some social `slight' - such as their opposing a possible engagement with someone who did not meet their parent's higher expectations for a suitor. Captured suicide bombers received long prison sentences. Those who were pregnant at the time of their mission had their child separated from them once the child became three years old. The author noted that young agents became more `radicalized' against Israel after their incarceration. This book is wonderful for allowing one to hear from Islamikazes as to what motivates their attacks.

The book assumes that all Palestinian bombers are motivated by the same thing .. in a word sex! Either because of the 72 virgins or because the women have been abused by family members. It is a real waste of incredible interviews to color them in this way. Having read most of the books and articles on this subject, I was incredibly disappointed that Berko uses the material to push a particular ideology and political perspective.