Virtually every study of the phenomenon of suicide bombers postulates that it is the idea of the shahid (martyr) rather than the idea of jihad (holy war) that seems to be the prime motivating factor. The communal glorification of the shahid further motivates the bombings. According to a verse in the Koran often quoted after a suicide bombing the shahid does not die. Moreover it is seen as a religious duty for the society to honor and glorify the family of a shahid. The names of suicide bombers are glorified even among children who are taught to look up to them as role models.
The goal of the suicide bombers is of course to annihilate the state of Israel; in their view Islam has a sacred right to the entire land of Palestine (which includes all of Israel). The suicide bombers who in essence are trained to become human weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are motivated by religious doctrine which claims that they are doing Allah’s will rather than acting out of self- interest. According to Hamas doctrine Israel is a nation of heretics existing on land that was divinely given to the Muslims and every Muslim must join in the holy war to free the land of the present invaders.
Suicide bombings have been justified by Hamas and Palestinian spokesmen with the claim that they are engaged in a war against an occupying power and that religion and international law permit the use of any means in resistance to occupation.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have issued reports declaring this line of reasoning to be unacceptable. Both human rights organizations have declared that the deliberate killing of Israeli civilians by Palestinian armed groups amounts to crimes against humanity.
While the phenomenon of suicide bombings is identified most readily with the Middle East crisis it is the same human WMD which are responsible for the 9/11 massacre the Bali murders the attacks in Kenya over the past few years and before that the murder of American soldiers in Lebanon and a multitude of other mass murders in areas of conflict ranging from India and Pakistan to Indonesia the Philippines Northern Ireland and various other regions of the world.
At a conference on the use of religion in inciting terrorism held in May at UN headquarters in New York and sponsored by the Global Ethics Resource Center the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders Touro Law School and Fordham Law religious leaders of all faiths declared unequivocally that the use of religion to incite terrorism and violence is unacceptable in all religions and constitutes a crime against humanity.
The U.S. is currently in hot pursuit of the weapons of mass destruction thought to have been stockpiled by Saddam Hussein. Perhaps the lesson to be learned from the search for the missing WMD is that the real threat has always been the human weapons of mass destruction the manipulation and distortion of religion for the purpose of achieving political or economic goals and the criminal use of humans to kill innocent civilians indiscriminately without regard for the universal values of all faiths.
President Bush declared recently that Hamas must be dismantled. By doing so he pinpointed the human WMD which are the most vicious and dangerous threat to peace in the Middle East and constitute a more imminent threat to world peace than any chemical biological or nuclear WMD.
If President Bush is serious about fighting terrorism and ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction he must join the battle being waged by the sponsors of the aforementioned May conference to achieve international consensus on the deligitimization of the use of religion to incite terrorism and violence. That’s where the White House will find its WMD.
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