Martyrs: Innocence, Vengeance, and Despair in the Middle East

The questions veteran journalist Davis tackles in her investigation of suicide attacks are the same gripping and unsettling ones most Americans asked in the days after September 11.""Why would anyone so viciously attack the United States?"" she asks.""What would make anyone kill himself and...other people in a brutal fashion? And does Islam really condone that type of holy war and martyrdom?"" Martyrdom has been deemed the ultimate Islamic sacrifice since the savage murder of Prophet Mohammad's grandson, Hussein, at Karbala (in modern-day Iran) in the late seventh century--but why is it now more alive than ever? From Iran to Lebanon to the hotbed of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza, Davis (Between Jihad and Salaam: Profiles in Islam) tracks the deep-seated feelings of anger, injustice and despondency fueling this brand of glorified violence, where the body becomes the weapon and the soul is guaranteed a place with""God in Heaven."" Her lengthy interviews--with everyone from the family of a female fanatic, to mothers of children martyred both in the crossfire and as suicide bombers, to the masterminds behind these missions--offer great insight into the proud, desperate hearts of the Palestinian people. But her subjects' rhetoric of hatred can be unrelenting, and her failure to frame it or their reading of history in dispassionate perspective lends a certain flabbiness to an otherwise lean and gutsy work. Davis's reporting is impressive in its access and depth, but it can be patchy on analysis. Still, this is a good introduction to an issue of great import, and a reminder that""terrorism, especially that propelled by martyrdom, cannot be stopped without eliminating the motivation for such violence.""