Understanding and Defusing Human Bombs: The Palestinian Case and the Pursuit of a Martyrdom Complex (original) (raw)

This study seeks to ground an old question-What are the motivational relationships and processes driving individuals to self-sacrifice and murder?-in a new unit of analysis: community. Interviews with preempted Palestinian suicide bombers and their social networks point to a 2-phase mechanism. Phase I, the pre-decision period, is influenced by community resistance which can, in time, transform notions of risk, loss, and sacrifice into symbolic capital, i.e. an economy of honor. Within a strongly internalized social identity, the bomber commits to the idea of doing a mission. Phase II, mission preparation, shifts from the dynamics of will to dynamics of focus. Ties to this world are minimized; thoughts and acts are channeled to the mission and afterlife. Policy recommendations include political and military tools for dismantling terrorists' greatest weapon-symbolic capital.