|
December 5, 2001
Edward Hammond
The Only
Real Way to
Prevent Biowarfare
Harvey
Wasserman
Atomic
Treason in the House
Carl Estabrook
America's
Israel
Don Williams
Questions
Barbara Walters Didn't Ask George Bush
Cockburn/St. Clair
Liberals
Hail War as
Return of Big Government
Robert
Fisk
The
Last Colonial War?
Bahour/Dahan
It's About
the Occupation
December 4, 2001
Dave Marsh
A
Plea for Byron Parker
Rep. Ron Paul
Keep Your
Eye on the Target
Susan
Herman
Ashcroft
and the Patriot Act
Tariq Ali
The Afghan
King and the Nazis
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
December
5, 2001
The
Making of a Suicide Attacker
Are Palestinians Human?
By Sam Bahour and Leila
Bahour
As Israeli warplanes pounded Palestinian cities,
Israel's media spin- doctor, Benjamin Netanyahu, was being interviewed
on the Fox News Channel where he likened Arafat to Osama bin
Laden and accused him of having "suicide kindergarten camps
for kids to prepare the next generation of suicide bombers"
(Dec. 3, 2001). It is exactly this type of hogwash that leads
to innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives being lost to desperation.
Mr. Netanyahu should be incarcerated for inciting ethnic violence
and hatred.
Regarding the Palestinian children living
in the Occupied Territories, if there is any hatred toward Israelis
brewing in their eyes, it is not being taught to them by any
parent, school, church or mosque. These feelings, if exist, come
out of the incidents that occur daily in their lives (Israeli
F-16 planes circling above their homes and dropping missiles
which kill a parent, uncle, aunt, cousin, or school mate, their
schools being closed, their inability to play in their yards,
etc.). What Israel has been and continues to create is a generation
of Palestinian children suffering from Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder as a direct result of the Israeli occupation. Unfortunately,
the world has turned a blind eye to the atrocities conducted
by Israel and somehow has turned the Palestinian child into an
aggressor only worthy of death.
Listening to the mini-army of Israeli
media spin personalities, one is led to ask if Palestinians are
really human. For 15 months now, Israel's well-defined whirlwind
media effort has been preciously focused on promoting its insidious
campaign to dehumanize the Palestinian people.
Assuming Palestinians are no different
than any other people (they have two arms, two legs and all major
organs), we then should take a step back from the nightly news
and media spin and understand why any Palestinian would commit
suicide, let alone take innocent Israeli lives with his own.
Since Palestinians are human, the sciences apply to them just
as it does to the rest of humanity.
Edwin Shneidman, a clinical psychologist
who is a leading authority on suicide, and who is sometimes called
the Father of modern Suicidology, has described the ten characteristics
of suicide in his book "Definition of Suicide" (1985).
1. The common stimulus in suicide is
"unendurable psychological pain".
2. The common stress in suicide is "frustrated
psychological needs".
3. The common purpose of suicide is "to
seek a solution".
4. The common goal of suicide is "cessation
of consciousness".
5. The common emotion in suicide is "hopelessness-
helplessness".
6. The common internal attitude toward
suicide is "ambivalence".
7. The common cognitive state in suicide
is "constriction".
8. The common interpersonal act in suicide
is "communication of intention".
9. The common action in suicide is "egression"
(a way out).
10. The common consistency in suicide
is with "life-long coping patterns".
If these are the findings of science,
then why is it that the investigative reporters of the world
do not enter the lives of these bombers to see if they fit the
profile of a suicidal person? Why the immediate acceptance of
the Israeli spin machine that Palestinians, in some twisted logic,
take happiness in killing themselves and others. Worse yet, why
do some try to understand the bombings in terms of being part
of some orchestrated media campaign that can be turned on or
off at will?
As we look at the research on suicide
and try to understand the mind of the suicidal individual, the
picture should become clearer as to how these characteristics
apply to a Palestinian suicide attacker.
Dr. Shneidman states in his article "At
The Point Of No Return" in Psychology Today (1987, p.56),
"Suicide, I have learned is not a bizarre and incomprehensible
act of self destruction. Rather, suicidal people use a particular
logic, style of thinking that brings them to the conclusion that
death is the only solution to their problems. This style can
be readily seen, and there are steps we can take to stop suicide,
if we know where to look".
Although this research applies to suicidal
individuals and not necessarily suicide bombers which take additional
innocent lives with their act, through studying the ten characteristics
of the suicidal individual, it certainly seems they apply even
more so to the suicidal bomber. These individuals seek to escape
overwhelming emotional pain. Shneidman terms this "metapain"
(hurt and pain on top of hurt and pain). So, from where does
this hurt and pain come? If only the answer were as simple as
the question. Living under Israeli occupation for years with
basic human rights stripped away and collective punishment the
norm would be the best one sentence answer that could be offered
at this time.
Another quote that seems to apply from
Shneidman (1985) is, "There are many pointless deaths but
never a needless suicide". Every suicide seems logical to
the individual who commits it. In a suicidal individual's mind,
suicide is the only way out of an unbearable situation. A person
can only cry so long with nobody listening before his options
become constricted and suicide seems to him the only answer.
In working with the "typical" suicidal individual,
the first step is listening and trying to understand the pain,
frustration and hopelessness/helplessness that he is feeling.
"Hopelessness" and "helplessness" exactly
describe the feelings of the Palestinian people living under
occupation. It seems nobody wants to hear the reality of the
situation but at the same time everyone seems so willing to label
and then be in astonishment when one of these horrendous acts
is committed. It is past time to look at the reality and begin
to provide other viable options to the Palestinian people. A
simple start to begin with would be giving them their dignity
and right to existence without occupation.
Suicide bombers are never ever justified
in their actions but those who want to try to understand may
understand their motivation. To reach a logical conclusion of
why these horrific events take place, one must scratch below
the surface that the sustained Israeli occupation has made thicker
and thicker with every passing year since 1967. Further complicating
matters, Israel has been successful in allowing the passive observer
to the conflict equate the actions and mindset of the occupied
with those of the occupier. This equality is unfair, illogical
and unscientific.
We must separate between those who carry
out deplorable suicide attacks, those innocent victims of the
attacks and those that politically plan, fund, and recruit for
the attacks. The overwhelming majority of those who carry out
the attacks are no more than normal young men, either born into
Israeli occupation or still imprisoned by many years of it. They
are victims of Israeli policies of dehumanization and continued
military occupation. They lack any means of military resistance
while facing a world-class military machine. As one of my readers
of a past article stated, "[If only the media would cover]
who they were, what their lives were like, who and what were
left behind -- it would be a whole different story about public
perception of the problem in Israel and Occupied Territories."
The innocent Israeli lives, especially
those of the children, which such attacks so abruptly end, are
only to be mourned by Israelis and Palestinians alike. Their
memories should serve as an eternal burden to all sides that
without an end to the occupation there are no winners or losers,
only more mourners on both sides.
As for those political entities that
breed in the desperation that occupation has created, they take
innocent Israeli lives by exploiting Palestinians in despair
while simultaneously stripping their own people of any political
agenda, or even legitimate armed resistance agenda, for ending
occupation. They thrive on disruption and chaos with a clear
political goal of complicating any chance for a negotiated solution.
These entities perfectly fit Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
strategy of ending the potential for a negotiated peace. Sharon
continues to give them, non-stop, since his election to office,
ripe grounds to operate from--economic despair, closures, assassinations,
etc. Those that facilitate such attacks could not have asked
for a better Israeli leader, one that has given them a never
ending seven day grace period to kill more Israelis.
The US has joined the Israeli media chorus
in demanding Arafat to do more to stop the suicide bombings.
Arafat only wishes he had the power to stop the suicide attacks.
He does not, for he cannot end occupation. Israel, and only Israel,
can stop the suicide attacks by giving back Palestinians their
freedom, dignity and a reason to live by ending 34 years of their
brutal military occupation and 54 years of suffering. To the
person who thinks in absolute terms, this may seem like Israel
would be giving in to a suicide bomber. On the contrary, to the
rational, intelligent human being who knows that the world does
not operate on historical or religious slogans, but rather "reality",
this would be looking at the underlying problem rather than adopting
a simplistic "Band-Aid" approach defined by Israel.
If Israel refuses to accept its historic
responsibility to end its terrorizing of the Palestinians, then,
sadly, it should not question why science applies to the Palestinian
people. As Palestinians and Israelis continue to bury and weep
for their innocent victims, Palestinians and Israelis alike,
the world would be well advised to remove its head from the sand.
CP
Sam Bahour,
MBA, and Leila Bahour, M.S.Ed., L.P.C., are Palestinian-Americans
and brother and sister. Sam is a businessman living in the besieged
Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank and frequently
writes on Palestinian affairs. He may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
Leila Bahour
is a Counselor at a Psychological Outpatient Counseling Practice
in the US who has worked in the psychological field for eleven
years. She spent a considerable amount of time dedicated to the
research of suicide during her pursuit of her Master's degree
and has treated suicidal individuals daily in her work over the
years.
|