As Jews one of the first things we learn is that suicide is absolutely taboo. It can never be condoned in religious terms and accordingly should never even be contemplated. There are even separate burial laws for those who have done the deed.
Of course in logistical terms there are far more compelling reasons why we would never entertain the idea: Firstly, no self respecting Jew would ever be caught dead at a mall wearing a haversack. Not even if it’s only for a few seconds and the only people who would see you were the guys watching the CCTV images on TV news. Imagine the shame you would bring on your parents. All those yentas sitting there going … “Did you see Trapido? He was wearing a haversack in Sandton City! I told you with a surname like Trapido he can’t be … must have come from the scouts and forgotten to return a primus stove or something.”
Not one of them would be concerned about the bomb, just the fact that here was a shmuck who didn’t have enough dress sense to remove a haversack before going in.
Secondly, the last thing you’re ever going to tempt a nice Jewish boy with, is the fact that there’ll be loads of virgins waiting on the other side.
Hell we live with virgins and quasi-virgins our whole lives: Jewish foreplay is seven hours of begging.
The quickest way to send the entire volunteer group packing is to tell them that as soon as they get to heaven they might as well throw away their shoes because they’ll be on their knees for eternity.
“Hell no! Send my cousin Milton … the bastard’s always sponging off everyone let him go beg there!”.
Thirdly, you’re going to have a helluva problem with the religious-versus-secular split on the issue of beards. No self respecting bomber would go in unshaven and no secular Jew is going to walk around with a scrawny beard for weeks on end. Either his wife or mother would have it off him in a matter of days. The religious guys on the other hand love to wear long beards but — for religious reasons — would never entertain suicide.
Fourthly, and this is compelling, no self-respecting Jewish man has the technical skills to change even a light bulb. So how are you going to train them to pack, carry and then detonate a bomb? I’m assuming here that they’ve managed to keep the beard, got passed all the kugels at the mall without being seen with a haversack and reconciled themselves to an eternity begging virgin yentas with headaches.
The school of suicide bombers would be imploding on a daily basis.
Can you imagine what an anti-semite you’d make of the landlord who owns the building where they train them?
“Listen! The next Jew to explode here and I’m terminating the lease. Haven’t you read the clause that says no structural alterations without the landlord’s consent? Now clean up your friend and don’t let me catch anyone doing this again!”
Religious and technical concerns will prevent suicide bombing from becoming popular in the near future.
Perhaps if Britney was on the other side …
I found the book by US academic Louise Richardson “What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat” very informative.
When suicide bombers who were caught before they could detonate their bombs were questioned they were found to be cool calm rational people, not crazed mental cases. Usually there was something personal that triggered their decision to become a suicide bomber over and above ‘normal’ grievances.
One young Palestinian woman was in labour and being taken by motor vehicle to medical care. She was stopped by Israeli soldiers at a roadblock who would not let her through. She remembers how they stood around and laughed and joked while her unborn child died. That was her trigger.
I guess those Israeli soldiers will not get buried in a seperate burial ground though, for it is not written in the scriptures that one should not drive somone else to commit suicide?
Good one, Traps. Valuing life more than death seems just so…rational, doesn’t it? By the way, I heard that the suicide bombers got it wrong. When they get to paradise, they’ll be met NOT by 72 virgins but by 72 VIRGINIANS: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Robert E. Lee…
Stereotyping is such fun, no?
“One young Palestinian woman was in labour and being taken by motor vehicle to medical care. She was stopped by Israeli soldiers at a roadblock who would not let her through. She remembers how they stood around and laughed and joked while her unborn child died. That was her trigger.”
My heart stopped when I read that. While I cannot condone, I certainly can understand.
Very funny. Fortunately the civilised tanks, Uzis and missiles used in Israel’s negotiations are stylishly designed and flashy.
The Israeli army seems very technically efficient when it comes to killing innocent Palestinians.
It my value-system, humanism, killing others is the taboo.
For the Quentin Tarantino take on Jewish suicide bombers bombers, see his latest movie, “Inglourious Basterds”.
Unfortunately that Wall, that one that veers off the Green Line and appropriates land and olive groves along the way, is pug ugly and very unstylish – even by Sandton’s standards. The Bantustan – Gaza – is also very unstylish and non-PC and Retro. Wasn’t Apartheid supposed to be dead back in the 1990s? Also, the bitchy, pejorative insults towards Judge Goldstone have left a bad taste all round. Talk about gunning for the messenger in a bid to quash the message.
It would/could all be a joke, except that it’s all serious.
The pity about the new SA is that we all have to wait until the other sect/race/culture takes a jibe at itself, in order to be politically correct. Please do it more often. It’s such fun!
Woody, a very emotional statement about the pregnant woman being being taken to medical care :-
1) An obvious invention ?
2) Pails into insignificance against the 850 000 Jews forced out of their homes in Moslem countries, without there being a single Jewish suicide bomber.
3)Why ( if it happened) does a Palestinian have to go to Israel for medical care ?
Funny but not so funny.
Nobody needs to commit suicide least of all with the intention of taking others along with them but the reality is, people do. To me this indicates that there was something awry in the context within which they were reared. The reality is the context in which Palestinians grow up is very much shaped by the state of Israel and it is not shaped in a humanly benign way either.
Traps, surely u know that the “72virgins in heaven” theory is a load of bulldust!! The Islamic faith condemns suicide as much as it condemns oppression & hostility against others.
Yes,Muslims r commanded to protect themselves, but they r ordered to first resort to peace, encourage tolerance & pay no attention to the ignorant(ahem ahem!)
The following verses from the Quran show how the Quran describes and strongly discourages suicide.
(2:195) You shall spend in the cause of GOD; do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction. You shall be charitable; GOD loves the charitable.
(4:29) O you who believe, do not consume each others’ properties illicitly – only mutually acceptable transactions are permitted. You shall not kill yourselves. GOD is Merciful towards you.
(4:30) Anyone who commits these transgressions, maliciously and deliberately, we will condemn him to Hell. This is easy for GOD to do.
The Quran does not promise Heaven to those who commit suicide!!! The Book warns of condemnation to Hell, much like (y)our book,yes?
The promise of paradise or of 1/10/20/72 virgin wives in Heaven for suicide bombers & murderers of innocent civilians has no basis in Islam &cannot be found anywhere in the Quran. These fabrications r taught to desperate, vulnerable Muslim youth & probably originated from the man made books of even more desperate and demented victims of war!
Next time, I suggest a little research!
What about the mass suicide of Masada?
I think if Jews were in the shoes of the Palestinians they would be willing to blow themselves up just to take even one of the enemy with them. Certainly that happened in the Warsaw Uprising during the end months of WWII.
When the Jews have been subject to severe oppression, they have resorted to suicidal tactics. But in Palestine, it is the Jews who are the oppressors and the fact that their enemy is desperate enough to blow themselves up proves it.
Right wing propaganda strives to dehumanise the Palestinian suicide bombers and pretend that they are extremists, instead of just ordinary people like you and me, suffering under enormous oppression.
Rabbi Friedman of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement has a clear view of the Jewish way. In response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its “Ask the Rabbis” feature in June this year, he wrote:
“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children and cattle,” Friedman argued that if Israel followed this wisdom, there would be “no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.”
@Joe Moer – Why does a Palestinian woman have to go to Israel for medical care? Where have you been these last few years?
When one hears suicide bomber, straight away they think Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Please explain all the suicide bombers blowing up their own people in places like Iraq, Pakistan, India etc.
Should we blame Israel for that too?
Very amusing. A pity that people are taking it so seriously!
Thanks traps you had me rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter. I needed that today
Its in line with the Richmark Sentinels view of the world…Am not suprised for someone who drinks in the same pot with Bullard
This is cute and amusing although it’s a bit uncomfortable “joking” around so serious a matter. I guess we can’t take ourselves too seriously though. Zapiro is the master of the art of satire and that is the page I turn to first when I get the Mail & Guardian on Friday and often find myself having one or two sneak previews through the week! The Israeli / Palestinian situation is really difficult even if you live there – outsiders are further disadvantaged since we are at the mercy of journalists and commentators for information which is often unreliable and biased. From most accounts, the Goldstone report is objective and fair and in this regard it bothers me that most pro-Israeli groups have simply discounted it as biased against Israel, ill informed and unfair which is just ridiculous given the credentials of Justice Richard Goldstone, not to mention the fact that he is himself Jewish. Generally my sympathies are strongly with the Palestinians – there are just too many sharp reminders of SA’s cruel apartheid days-even the propaganda put out on a regular basis by various Israeli authorities touches a raw spot and sets the alarm bells ringing. That said, I despise any indiscriminate violent operation that kills, maims or injures children and innocent people – there is no justification or excuse – if you have to employ violent methods which are sometimes necessary, aim them against the military, not civilians.
You should make a difference between Jew and Isreali as you should make a difference between Muslim and Palistines. The one is not neccessarily the other and though it is forbidden for both Jews and Muslims to commit suicide, we find numerous examples of both in history. Any person(or group) can be driven to horendous deeds if prevoked hard and long enough.
Poor woman having to lose her baby while Ju-hus laugh at her. Sad, very sad.
But that ordeal, does it really justify her being a suicide bomber??
Oh my, then Mandiba would never have been a hero. We know why Mandela is an icon, a leader to reckon. He did the opposite.
Am hungry right now, and very broke, pay day is daysto come, does it give me a right to kill this s*n of b*itch eating McDonalds burger infront of me or even shoplift ?
Hey, Traps, good journalism.
How is this satire?
Ha, what is more telling than the article is the comments that have followed it. Firstly their is this weird support for people who strap a bomb to themselves, get on a bus, or enter a crowded market or restaurant with the intent on killing, maining and injuring as many innocent people as possible. In fact rather than condemning this atrocious act, they attack israel. Which leads me onto my second point. What does Israel have to do with any of this? Besides the fact the Yasser Arafat, and the second intifada made suicide attacks more famous than most. Just the other day over 200 people were killed or injured in a suicide attack in a market in Pakistan. There is a suicide attack every little while in Iraq. In fact there have been suicide attacks in places like London.
And then I suppose since the first real use of it as a tactic in Sri Lanka, how many have been Jewish. Not very many I would think, I Traps is just giving us the reasoning.
PS. Masada was not a suicide attack it was a suicide defence. The choice being living, enslaved, or being put to death by the Romans, or killing oneself (and obody else) and there is huge debate amongst different thought trains if what they did was right or wrong.
satiric – satirical: “exposing human folly to ridicule; ”
satirist – “a humorist who uses ridicule and irony and sarcasm”
Satir – “The literary art of ridiculing a folly or vice in order to expose or correct it”
“Satire is a mode of discourse or genre defined by its use of irony, sarcasm, or ridicule for mocking, exposing or denouncing the frailties and faults of mankind”