Some insight into the mindset of radical Palestinians is offered in an interview by Jamie Glazov of Frontpagemag.com with Pierre Rehov, a French filmaker who has filmed six documentaries on the Palestinian Intifada. His documentary, Suicide Killers, explores the psychology of suicide bombers. He has a new film out, From the River to the Sea, which examines the worldwide forces that have empowered Hamas and Hezbollah." A portion of the interview follows.
FP: The Palestinians have shown over and over again that they lust for the destruction of Israel to the point that they would prefer it over a good life for themselves. They would rather blow themselves and their children up then have their own state, live in peace and have Jews next to them. This is a craving for death no? From where does such a pathology emerge?
Rehov: We should not say the Palestinians, but some Palestinians, and unfortunately a significant percentage of them. To get into this pathology would take months of medial reports but my own experience on the field led me to retain two aspects of the problem.
No Palestinian suicide bomber actually becomes a suicide bomber as a direct result of occupation or to fight this occupation. What they fight is the culture and the free society behind this so-called “occupation.” The word occupation has to be understood as they see it: for Palestinians, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Eilat, Beer Sheva are occupied. Not only Gaza (which is no longer occupied) and the West Bank.
What a suicide bomber wants to destroy is not the army of the enemy, but the "impurity" surrounding him. None of them are seculars. What leads them to commit a suicide attack is their absolute belief in a ferocious God, who has put the Muslims in charge of His world, and asked them to spread His word by any means. The first duty to a Muslim is to convert non-Muslims to Islam.
This leads to a real pathology, since Islam doesn't leave any door open for interpretation or reform. Mohammed is the last prophet. Islamic law should prevail. Anything contrary to this absolute truth must be destroyed.
In such a closed culture, the interpretation of outside events is obviously different from a rational one. Any victory is offered by God. Any defeat is a punishment for not being pure enough. And while the Occidental culture is mostly built on guilt, one has to understand that Muslim culture is built on shame. The opposite of shame being pride, no Muslim can accept to obey other rules than the Islamic ones.
This leads to a situation where, young males, and some young women, actually dream of being this absolute heroes, that everyone is going to worship, whose duty would have been fulfilled, and whose reward is specifically described in the Koran: namely, absolution, paradise, 72 virgins for the men, and the acceptance of 70 members of their family, forgiven for all their sins.
I asked a female suicide bomber who had failed in her mission: “Why, if your God created Jews, do you think it is your mission to kill them?" She answered: "God also created snakes, rats, and viruses."