ABSTRACT
A 22-year-old graduate student named Muhammad al-Ghoul boarded a bus in Jerusalem and he detonated explosives that were packed around his body. The bombing killed nineteen Jewish Israelis, including an eleven-year-old girl and several high school students. The bomb maker had packed the device with ball bearings, in order to kill the largest possible number of people. Palestinians and other Arabs see each bomber as a religious martyr, or shahid, for the cause of Islam, and glorify his deeds in songs, parades, murals, and graffiti. By late 2002, an opinion survey showed that over eighty percent of Palestinian Arabs favored the use of violence against Israel: two-thirds of respondents supported the use of suicide bombings. Hamas is funded and actively supported by Arab and Muslim states, including Syria and Saudi Arabia: the Saudis even use telethons to raise money for the families of "martyrs".
