Psychology of Suicide Bombing

Scenario: A 20 year old female student's fiancé is killed while fighting a war. Natural feelings of despair, loneliness, profound loss and a shattered future take hold in her mind. The brain's mechanisms that control the electrical and chemical reactions that allow us these human feelings are normal. But a protracted never ending barrage may require counseling or even psychiatric attention. Researchers agree that the most prevalent reason for suicide is severe prolonged depression most commonly caused by helplessness and despair.

Out of a reported 10 to 14 million people with depression, about 30,000 commit suicide each year. Rather than allow our brain and mind to spiral out of control, we have a national, medical and religious support system of government and religious leaders as well as psychology and medical scholars to treat and nurture us to health, leading us back to productive lives. Our social mores are such that suicide is not an acceptable answer.

Our society encourages us to seek help in the form of cognitive therapy, a popular antidepressant such as Paxil, or perhaps a supplement such as St. John's Wort or physical exercise. Our culture automatically and unconsciously 'accepts' this condition and these therapies. As a national health concern, there are numerous government and private suicide prevention and support programs.

Much effort has been made to treat depression and reduce the number of suicides in our society. But what if our culture left the depressed untreated, or worse, added fuel to the chemicals in our brain that cause such despair or lack of self worth? Such is the case in the West Bank and in Gaza. Here is a population that is full of despair, fear and hopelessness. The reasons for these emotions are beyond the scope of this letter. But in this society, government and religious leaders as well as scholars are exploiting this mental condition for political gain.

Rather than treat a brain chemical imbalance caused by despair and hopelessness with an antidepressant, there has become an unconscious, automatic and embraced ideal that the condition is somehow 'fixed' by being handed a lethal backpack and "sent on your way."

A bit trite? Not at all.

Since September there have been 116 attempted and successful suicide attacks in Israel. There is no 'profile' of today's suicide bomber. They include women, children and even mothers of newborn babies. The only documented common denominator has been an underlying feeling of profound despair. It is simply repugnant that scholars, government and religious leaders actually condone the act of suicide (excuse me, "martyrdom") as a cure for despair. The act of 'brainwashing' easily-manipulated people seeking answers to their despair by state leaders is nothing less than a War Crime (and they should be convicted and tried as such).

Such is the case with the woman who lost her fiancé. Her name is Arien Ahmed, and she is a 20-year old Palestinian student of business administration. She is currently in an Israeli jail. After her fiancé died she became full of despair, and she turned for help. The support she (like others) found was a widely-known educated group who simply told her that she would rejoin her slain fiancé if she committed suicide. As she walked through the crowded market in a "frozen unthinking" state, her brain somehow provided a memory of someone else in her support system. It was of her uncle, a mechanical engineer that lives in Long Beach, California. After turning herself in, Arien stated that he was the only Palestinian she had ever heard criticize suicide bombers.

It can't be explained why the brain allowed such an awakening before a pending self-inflicted fatal act. But Arien is a reminder of how the mind can be manipulated. And in her special case, the 'memory' of a positive support system saved her life and the lives of innocent people.

The mind's emotions spark an action. Once the spark is ignited it is our support system that will either rescue us from the abyss or send us to the next life possibly taking innocent people with us. Our society has fostered a support system of government, religious, education and medical leaders that foster mental well being and above all cherishes life. This simply wasn't the case for Arien and importantly, the 2+ million living with dispair in the West Bank and Gaza. As for Arien, she hopes to make a new life in Jordan. Why not the West Bank? In her own words, "My nation will refuse me as a coward".