Suicide is not painless 

by Saul Singer
Jerusalem Post
May 30, 2002 

As an American, she might have aspired to be a nun. In Israel 
she would probably have poured her soul into community service. 
In would-be Palestine, Thauriya Hamamreh decided to become a 
suicide bomber. 

David Rudge's interview with Hamamreh in yesterday's Jerusalem Post 
is a riveting document. One might assume that anyone so bent on 
mass murder that they would be willing to take their own life 
would be burning with hatred. 

Hamamreh, who was so petite that there was not enough room to 
strap the standard bomb belt on her, said she had decided to 
become a martyr for "personal reasons." Anger at Israel was 
clearly a factor, but her underlying belief was the need for 
jihad to "create a just and equal, non-corrupt society by 
the spread and unification of Islam." 

Palestinian society may be the first on earth to transform 
suicide and murder into a form of social work. Terrorist groups 
claim they try to weed out people who, like Hamamreh, are 
suicidal and want to harness their depression in the name of 
a grand cause. We can't have people who actually want to die 
killing themselves, goes this logic. 

But Hamamreh's mixed motivations are probably much more typical 
than they are made out to be. 

To the cynical masterminds who send young people out to die, 
suicide bombing is a "military" tactic. Along the way, however, 
the Palestinians have developed a culture of suicide that may not 
be so easily dismantled, even once they decide to try. 

For a chilling preview, Palestinians had better look at what 
happened in an island paradise far away from their troubles. 

In the early 1960s, suicide was almost unknown in Micronesia. 
By the end of the 1980s, there were more suicides in this 
sparse archipelago than anywhere else in the world. Teens began 
killing themselves for trivial reasons being yelled at by a 
sibling, not having a graduation gown, or because a girlfriend 
had been seen with another boy. 

Anthropologist Donald Rubinstein traced Micronesia's suicide 
epidemic and seems to have found its origins. 

On the island of Ebeye in May 1966 after a decade without a 
single suicide an 18-year-old boy hanged himself in jail 
after his arrest for stealing a bicycle. Six months later, 
the well-known son of one of the island's wealthiest families 
hanged himself when he could not decide between his two 
girlfriends, having fathered a child with each. His lovers 
fainted on his grave, having met there for the first time. 

Three days later, a 22-year old hanged himself over marital 
difficulties. 

The epidemic was on. Other research, as Malcolm Gladwell 
noted in The Tipping Point, found that "suicide can be 
contagious." Studies in the US found that immediately after 
newspaper accounts of suicides, suicide rates jumped. 
Marilyn Monroe's suicide was followed by a temporary 12 percent 
increase in the national suicide rate. 

In Micronesia, and elsewhere, of course, suicide can be 
contagious even when there is no support for it in the 
surrounding culture. Now imagine a situation in which 
suicide generates global not just national headlines, 
happens with dizzying frequency, is associated with a 
glorious struggle and is rewarded with instant heroism 
rather than shame. 

In such a culture Hamamreh's choice becomes rational. 
Why jump off a building in ignominy, when blowing up in 
a crowded cafe can secure your place in heaven, not to 
mention history? Some have made the point that suicide 
bombing has little to do with desperation, but is the 
opposite a macabre expression of hope in the future. 
Actually it is has become a mishmash of both, and something 
else: a fad. 

Hamamreh became disillusioned when her handlers told her 
to blow herself up if she was caught, even if she was not 
in the middle of a crowd. "I felt like they were playing a 
game with the blood of the martyrs," she explained. 

It is more than the "martyrs' " blood these men are playing 
with. They have deliberately seeded a cultural suicide epidemic. 
Like their counterparts in nature, cultural epidemics are not 
easy to start, but they are even harder to control. 

Even if word comes from the top that suicide bombing is 
no longer in the Palestinian interest, this does not really 
negate the cultural cues that have already been established. 
All other suicide epidemics, after all, started in places 
where suicide was already frowned upon. 

Antidotes may be few, but one was recently demonstrated. 
When the Taliban were put out on their ears in Afghanistan, 
Osama bin Laden T-shirts suddenly became less popular in 
Peshawar. Bin Laden tried to start a terror epidemic and 
the US, through decisive military action, was able to stop 
it in its tracks, at least temporarily. 

Operation Defensive Shield, though relatively effective, 
was essentially an aborted version of the US action, 
stopping far short of "regime change." 

There is no precedent for the breadth of the suicide cult 
the Palestinians have created. What seems clear, however, 
is that the Palestinians will need a lot of help in 
snuffing it out.