ABSTRACT
The current wave of so-called ‘suicide-bombings’ perpetrated by Muslims has been part of Shi’ite Islamic idealization of suffering and death, meant for the Believer to identify with the ordeal of Imam Hussein in the seventh century CE. It was revived by the Shi’ite Hizballah in Lebanon against the Americans and the Israelis, and then expanded by Sunnite Palestinian Islamists, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and even by avowedly ‘secular’ Palestinian groups such as the Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades and Tanzim. But the justifications for all those groups are, nevertheless, curiously Islamic. This article presents the text written by a prominent cleric and diffused in the Palestinian media, rationalizing suicide-bombing as the ultimate mode of struggle against Muslim enemies.
