Whatever happened to the quiet little suicide at home. Martyrs? Not very likely, murderers is the real word. These people are going out to commit murder, senseless, random murder. I think we define that as either psychopathic or sociopathic. Write about it for what it is: people deluded by others to go out and commit murder, and spare me the psycho babble and the sexual backstories.

Israel security personnel usually go after meen between about 16 and 40, so women are more likely to get through checkpoints and deep into Israel with almost so one suspecting them. This is a major advantage to Hamas.

A major downside to Hamas is that female suicide bombers are less "reliable" as far as carrying out the attacks. During my time in Israel, there were a number of female suicide bombers who backed out at the last minute. I remember one they interviewed on the news once said she went somewhere and was about to detonate when she looked around, saw all the women and children she would kill if she detonated and backed out at the last minute. A few other similar stories happened as well. Maybe the marriage and shame thing is the only major push factor they can come up with to convince women to kill themselves and innocent people around them. In the case of the woman who had teh affair with the Hamas guy, if her family found out that she had anything like premarital or extramarital sex, her father and/or brothers (or husband) would kill her in an "honor kiling" anyway (and "honor killings" do happen in Israel proper as well as the West Bank and Gaza).

But basically, it seems women are less likely to muster the kind of cruelty it takes to be a suicide bomber on their own.

Like Treifalicious, I also remember seeing on Israel TV stories about female suicide bombers and potential ones. The common thread was indeed that they had all suffered some sort of "shame" that would have resulted in either their ostracism from their community or their murder by family members, usually their father and/or brothers.

By committing suicide and in the process murdering Israelis, they turned their personal and family shame into "honour".

Sorry, but no amount of sympathetic feminism or twisted political correctness should allow us to find this truly disgusting practice acceptable.

You run the risk of them pulling your Che T-shirt Salon wankfest membership card if you do not keen and scream over the necessity of fighting the evil Jew menace. And does this bomb make my ass look fat?

This article seems to ask us to give sympathy to these Murderers and see them as victims; of Men, of Reigion, of Socieity. Too little acknowledgement is given to the fact that they made a Horrifying and Terrible choice. How Sad.

Interesting article. But I've already known this and have tried to convince my Jew-hating father much of what is in this article: Suicide bombers don't need to be oppressed to hate enough to kill Jews. This sentence right here "Her dream, she said, was for the world to become Islamic" is just one clue.

My father, and many others, truly believe if only Israel would only (fill in the blank), then there will be peace. Give me a break! Islamic extremist will not stop until the world is Islamic.

These people aren't "peaceful farmers" as comedian Kathy Griffin jokingly refers to them. No. They stone women to death who shame their families just for being sexual beings. Or, as the article states, they (these Palestinian women) can "redeem" themselves by strapping bombs on their bodies to kill Jews, Christians, anyone who is not Islamic.

I'll have to mail this article to my father in San Francisco. He naively (or is it hatefully?) believes that if only the Jews would just stop the oppression of these peaceful Palestinians - peace will flourish, flowers will bloom, rainbows will erupt in the sky... (sigh) and if I tell him different It's because I believe "right-wing propaganda." Since I'm pretty sure Salon is hardly right-wing, maybe he'll finally wake-up.

Steve--

I'd suggest you re-read the article. The tone hardly elicits "sympathy" for these suicidal murderers. The tone of the article seems more informative than judgmental. It's a very difficult subject to put aside your own views and simply report. I believe the author does a brilliant job of straddling that line.

Giving a glimpse into the world of Islamic extremists is something that the vast majority of people in western society need. What makes this article so interesting is that this time it is about the women in that sect. As a western woman (and mother), I cannot imagine abandoning my children to achieve some higher plain. Truly, it seems to go against the natural instincts of a mother in most societies. The idea of the hur and becoming the manager or officer of the 72 transparent virgins is a bizarre reward for murder/suicide indeed.

The more I read about the suicide bomber mentality, the more perplexed I get.

Maqluba wrote: "The more I read about the suicide bomber mentality, the more perplexed I get." And you know, I think that's at the heart of things. Ever since 9/11 we in the West have been becoming more and more perplexed.

We come from societies in which pluralism and tolerance are the key values. Our fundamental premise is that yes, there are others who think differently from me, and s/he is entitled to her/his viewpoint, but we can agree to disagree.

When we look at the suicide (sorry, homicide) bombers, the focus is off for us, because we just can't -and so much don't want to- believe that there are people out there whose worldview is that if we don't share their views then we should simply not exist.

Islamic terror is not only aimed at Israel, or the West. It is also aimed at Muslims who are not in accordance with them either. Witness many of the suicide bombings in Iraq..or maybe don't, because the sight of a bomber's jaw bone embedded in a baby's chest cavity just ain't pretty sight.

Where do we begin with those who think this way? It's more than perplexing, it's terrifying: I just think of the idealistic American Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, who went to Pakistan because he wanted to talk to those people, and ended up beheaded on the Internet.

I so much wish it were different, but then so did Daniel Pearl.