Suicide bomber's father blasts son's recruiters

KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Oct. 9, 2002

The father of a Palestinian who carried out a suicide attack in Israel earlier this year has attacked Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders for sending his son on the fatal mission. He also questioned the effectiveness of suicide bombings, saying they have failed in deterring Israel.

In a letter to the editor of the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, the father, who identified himself as Abu Saber, wrote: "I can find no better words with which to begin my letter than the words of Allah, in his precious book [the Koran]: 'Act for the sake of Allah, and do not throw yourselves to destruction with your own hands.' I write this letter with a languishing heart and with eyes that have not ceased weeping.

"We must, today more than at any other time, obey this Koranic verse, act for the sake of Allah, and refrain from carrying out acts that will throw us to destruction."

The letter is a reflection of the heated debate that is taking place among Palestinians regarding the effectiveness of suicide attacks. Many Palestinians believe the attacks have only aggravated the situation and caused more harm. Others, however, insist that the suicide bombings have created a "balance of terror" with Israel.

The father said that four months ago, he lost his eldest son when his friends tempted him, praising the path of death. "They persuaded him to blow himself up in one of Israel's cities," he said.

"When the pure body of my son was scattered all over, my last signs of life also dispersed, along with hope and my will to exist," he added.

The father said in his letter that now he is concerned that the same people who dispatched his son were trying to recruit another son for a similar mission.

"The last straw was when I was informed that the friends of my eldest son the martyr were starting to wrap themselves like snakes around my other son, not yet 17, to direct him to the same path toward which they had guided his brother, so that he would blow himself up too to avenge his brother, claiming 'he had nothing to lose.'" He appealed to the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad to work toward putting an end to the suicide attacks, saying this was not the way to deter Israel or liberate the homeland.

"From the blood of the wounded heart of a father who has lost what is most precious to him in the world, I turn to the leaders of the Palestinian factions, and at their head the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their sheikhs, who use religious rulings and statements to urge more and more of the sons of Palestine to their deaths knowing full well that sending young people to blow themselves up in the heart of Israel deters no enemy and liberates no land. "On the contrary, [it] intensifies the aggression, and after every such operation, civilians are killed, homes are razed, and Palestinian cities and villages are reoccupied.

"I ask, on my behalf and on behalf of every father and mother informed that their son has blown himself up: 'By what right do these leaders send the young people, even young boys in the flower of their youth, to their deaths?' Who gave them religious or any other legitimacy to tempt our children and urge them to their deaths?... Yes, I say 'death,' not 'martyrdom.' Changing and beautifying the term, or paying a few thousand dollars to the family of the young man who has gone and will never return, does not ease the shock or alter the irrevocable end.

"The sums of money [paid] to the martyrs' families cause pain more than they heal; they make the families feel that they are being rewarded for the lives of their children... Do the childrens' lives have a price? Has death become the only way to restore the rights and liberate the land?

And if this be the case, why doesn't a single one of all the sheikhs who compete amongst themselves in issuing fiery religious rulings, send his son? Why doesn't a single one of the leaders who cannot restrain himself in expressing his joy and ecstasy on the satellite channels every time a young Palestinian man or woman sets out to blow himself or herself up send his son?"

The letter concluded by launching a scathing attack on Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders who refuse to send their sons to carry out suicide attacks.

"But what tears at the soul, pains the heart, and brings tears to the eyes more than anything else is the sight of these sheikhs and leaders evading sending their sons into the fray such as Mahmoud al-Zahar, Ismail Abu Shanab, and Abdel Aziz Rantisi. The moment the intifada broke out, al-Zahar sent his son Khaled to America; Abu Shanab sent his son Hasan to Britain; and [as she stated to the press] Rantisi's wife has refrained from sending her son Muhammad to blow himself up. Instead, she sent him to Iraq, to complete his studies there."