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What Happened to the Suicide Bombers of Jerusalem?

[Slate] Christopher Hitchens - Whatever happened to the suicide bombers of Jerusalem? It was widely said by people as eminent as Tony Blair's wife that the real cause of such a lurid and awful tactic was despair: the reaction of a people who had no other avenue of expression for their misery and frustration. Well, surely nobody will be so callous as to say that there is less despair among Palestinians today. Of the various explanations, one would be the success of the wall or "fence" that Israel has built. Another possible reason for the slump in suicide is that those who were orchestrating it came to find that the tactic was becoming subject to diminishing returns. Nasty, vicious, fanatical old men were making the decisions and deciding the days and the hours of death. And the hysterical ululating street celebrations when such a mission was successful did not signify despair at all but a creepy form of religious exaltation in which relatives were encouraged to make a feast out of the death of their own children as well as those of other people.
2009-07-17 06:00:00
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