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Maria Alvanou
The shameful defeat that Israel suffered in southern Lebanon and which caused its
army to flee in terror was not made on negotiations table, but on the battlefield and
through Jihad and martyrdom, which achieved a great victory for the Islamic
resistance and Lebanese People....we would not exaggerate if we said that the
chances of achieving victory in Palestine are greater than in Lebanon...If the enemy
could not bear the losses of the war on the border strip with Lebanon, will it be able
to withstand a long war of attrition in the heart of its security dimension and major
cities 81
… Hizballah has won...Lebanon the weakest of the Arab states, has presented a
miniature model, and if we examine it closely we will be able to draw conclusions
for success and victory. 82
The message conveyed by these attacks is also directed inwards as they solidify
group moral, with an act of self sacrifice in the name of the organisation’s cause as
a unifying factor. 83 The willingness to die is also used as evidence of a group’s
superiority against its adversaries, who are portrayed as pleasure seekers and who
in spite their military dominance are essentially weak (Paz, 2000, p. 93). While on
one hand the Israeli enemy is supposed to be strong, on the other hand, the Israeli
society is made up by “pleasure seekers” cowards who fear death and suicide:
It is a selfish society that loves life. These are not people who are eager to die for
their country and their God. The Jews will leave this land rather than die, but the
Muslim is happy to die. 84
Part of the success of the suicide bombings strategy is the fact that is more likely to
be employed against states with democratic political systems. Israel is a democracy
and as such it is viewed both by domestic critics as well as the terrorists themselves
as “soft”, on the grounds that the public has low cost tolerance and a high ability to
affect state policies. Despite the reality or not of this assumption that democracies
are easier to coerce than other regime types (Horowitz and Reiter, 2001, pp. 147-
173), the important is that this is how terrorist view it. 85
It should be noted that the tactic of suicide bombings can possibly also result to
negative effects regarding the goals of the organizations that use it. If the scope of
the organization is to gain sympathy in the global arena, then the Western culture
that does not understand the “martyrdom culture” could lead to the group viewed
as a bunch of mere irrational fanatics. “The tremendous anxiety and the intense
media reaction evoked by attacks against civilian targets” (Ganor, 2001), the
extreme violence and slaughter of innocents may cause to the public even the
rejection of the desire and claims of legitimization by the group. Further a
prolonged suicide terror campaign instead of breaking the adversary morale could
likely make the target population more radicalized, unified, less willing to
compromise and more willing to retaliate with extreme measures. 86 Nevertheless,
since as described before there are many benefits gained, the organizations use
suicide bombings, despite of possible setbacks.
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