The road to Martyrs' Square : a journey into the world of the suicide Bomber / Anne Marie Oliver and Paul F. Steinberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oliver, A. M.

Contributor:

Steinberg, Paul F.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmīyah.

Suicide bombers--Gaza Strip.

Suicide bombers.

Suicide bombers--West Bank.

Terrorism--Gaza Strip.

Terrorism.

Terrorism--West Bank.

West Bank.

Gaza Strip.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 214 pages, 64 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005.

Summary:

Combining in equal measure the critical and the compassionate, the tragic and the absurd, this memoir chronicles two interlocking, often clashing journeys-an exploration of the cult of martyrdom in the underground media of the intifada, on the one hand, and on the other, the struggle for friendship across seemingly impossible divides.

The authors lived for six months with a Palestinian refugee family in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of the intifada, and then for the next six years collected graffiti, videotapes, audiocassettes, posters, and other street media in over one hundred towns in the West Bank and Gaza. Their book is based on these primary materials (with 86 illustrations included) as well as dozens of interviews with leaders and followers, including a rare interview with a Hamas suicide bomber whose bomb failed to explode on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem. Dispensing with the cliches and platitudes surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the book provides access to materials hitherto unavailable and presents in a new and compelling voice the master scripts of the intifada and the rise of the suicide bomber. Disseminated by nationalists and Islamists alike, these materials make it clear that the suicide bomber is not just an Islamist phenomenon but rather a widely shared fantasy that skips across religious and political divides. Indeed, the fantasy of the suicide bomber, the authors suggest, is global in scope.

Here is an important and timely work that will challenge the way we think about the intifada, suicide bombers, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Contents:

Welcome to Planet X

Look with your ears, my friend

Lunch with Hasan

A complete darkness

The disciple (Hahaha)

A minor jihad

The gharqad tree

The evil incident

The brotherhood

Splits in the brain

The miracle sheikh

The mechanical waving hand of a keffiyah-clad manikin

Soldier in Chinese hat, planning escape

The sweet girl

The antidote

A babe in the womb

The crazy girl

The dark room

Walls, maze, prison

An entire cosmology

A question of style

It doesn't matter when or how I am killed

Martyr on a black horse

Terror in their hearts

We are worth nothing without a machine-gun

Children, but they are men and heroes

Al-Aqsa massacre video

Blood, blood, blood

A collaborator breaker accused of something close to collaboration

A daring shock of jet-black hair coyly peeking out beneath her veil

Monkeys and pigs and servants of evil

The mad dogs of language

A notice of the end of the world

The green line

The fixer

Ghosts with guns

The last words of Mahir ("Hamza") Abu-Surur

The smile of the martyr

A still blue river

The killing of Haim Nachmani

The last words of Salah Mustafa 'Uthman

A happy man

A happy man (continued)

The last words of Muhammad Hasan al-Hindi

Intimate of heart

Al-Hindi and Abu-Surur meet

Circle and vow, the trainer's soliloquy

A tourist in the dunya

A khanjar, floating

A second appearance

Any number compared to infinity

The paradise hotel

The gun dance

A few hours later; or, the trail of a dagger.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [191]-198) and index.

ISBN:

0195116003

OCLC:

55015686