More on Israel-Palestine

I had an opinion piece on the Israel-Palestine crisis published in Friday's Lynn Daily Item. I hope to watch the footage of the Chomsky-Dershowitz debate sometime soon.

The question of why people become suicide bombers has occupied my attention for a while. It is something that is antithetical to everything that I value. I have asked the question to Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz and former Israeli Defense Forces colonel Miri Eisen. Now, writer Hans Magnus Enzensperger takes on the question in a provocative piece for the German website Sign and Sight. Enzensperger posits that "the instinct of self-preservation is not up to much," citing the adulation won by religious martyrs. He adds, "The remarkable fondness of the human species for suicide, down the ages and across all cultures, is proof enough of this." From this statement he delves into the mind of the suicide bomber -- or, in his words, "the radical loser." He portrays young Muslims across the globe, heirs to a dissipating culture, hopelessly dependent upon the West even for their tactics. His explanation of the terrifying phenomenon of suicide bombers is powerful, persuasive and pessimistic.