ABSTRACT
(Copyright © 1993 Taylor & Francis Group. This chapter was first published in Terrorism and Political Violence 5, no. 3 (Autumn 1993), pp. 58–77. Reprinted with permission of the publisher)
Look Yahweh, and consider:
whom have you ever treated like this?
Should women eat their little ones,
the children they have nursed?
Should priest and prophet be slaughtered
in the Lord’s sanctuary?
(Lamentations 2:20) The academic study of the radical faction of the pro-life movement in the United States known generically as the rescue movement is unique in that, of the welter of resurgent religio-political organizations active in the contemporary world, virtually no scholarly account of rescue uses the large body of literature generated by the rescuers themselves. 1 This state of affairs is remarkable when considered in the context of the academic study of religious movements in other cultures which, in stark contrast to the remarkably open and non-violent ethos of the rescue movement, have presented researchers with significantly greater challenges in approaching activists and gathering primary source materials. For instance, scholars of Islamic fundamentalism following the example of Richard Mitchell in his ground breaking study of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, have proved remarkably adept at unearthing primary source documents and, occasionally at some risk, personally interacting with movement leaders and cadre. 2 Similarly, no scholar purporting to study such radical Jewish fundamentalist groups as Gush Emunim would fail either to make use of the literature which the movement has produced or to interact with Gush adherents in the Occupied Territories. 3 Yet with few exceptions, scholars moved to undertake an academic study of rescue appear not to have seriously entertained the notion that rescuers, no less than other religio-political activists, have produced a coherent body of literature and a pool 259of personal narrative which offer significant insights into the remarkable sub-culture that the rescue movement has become. 4