Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women’s magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber.
At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya — the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 — Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: “if you’re not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don’t want you.”
Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle — even a just battle — has been a constant and powerful image.
Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women — some married with infant children — are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life. Look at what is being preached by some influential Islamic leaders:
“We are going to win, because they love life and we love death,” said Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He has also said: “[E]ach of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah.” Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter: “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”
Well, I suppose we could grant them their wish.
The religion of peace. Who could ask for a more elaborate demonstration of a mother’s love?
The religion of death is the residence of the liar- he who brought death to all of us. Only he calls it the religion of peace.
It was the crippled founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion, José Millán-Astray y Terreros, who in 1936 urged his followers to adopt the slogan Viva la Muerte! Bajo la’inteligencia! (Long life death! Down with intelligence). Today’s suicide bombers move in illustrious company.
This noted Jewish author has pinpointed a crucial difference all right, one that shows that peaceful co-existence between militant Islam and the western world is simply impossible. And he is right that a pro-active stance is absolutely necessary.
This obsession with “martyrdom” in some parts of Islam is truly symptomatic of how completely the Enemy has deceived so many in this false religion. Choosing to accept death willingly when it is forced on you due to persecution is one thing, that’s the kind of martyrdom that we Christians have always admired and praised. But suicide bombers aren’t “martyrs,” they are just murderers. Satan comes only to “steal, kill, and destroy.” In contrast, Jesus said he came “that we might have life in all its fullness” (John 10:10).
Pope John Paul the Great made famous the phrase “a culture of death” with regard to describing so much of modern western culture. And he urged the Church to lead society in heeding the biblical call to “Choose life” (as in Deut. 30:15-19). But while western culture has condoned abortion on demand and the brutal slaughter of millions of unborn, helpless children, that is still a far cry from this kind of obscene fanaticism. This perverse form of Islam is even sicker in its glorification of death.
To quote a famous secular source, “Know your enemy.” But in biblical language, let us remember that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood…”
David Handy+
Dershowitz is as militant and uncompromisng an advocate of a “pro-choice” position, that is, the legalized slaughter of unborn children, as any other in that camp — so this amounts only to another instance of the “kettle and pot” routine.
And yet, in spite of the obvious differences between Christianity and Islam (the one preaching THE Word of Life and Truth; the other preaching the Sword of Death), Liberals and Revisionists continue to fall over themselves in appeasement, making all sorts of accomodations for the furtherance of the Islamic “religion” even in Christian lands.
Talking of granting of wishes, I am sure that if/when the Liberals/Revisionists get their wish, they are not going to like what they got.
Fr. Kinglsey
Arlington, TX
The stark truth and the most fundamental difference between Christianity and the LORD God on one hand and Islam and its god of this world on the other, in the words of its own leaders.
What does the Son of the true God say? “I came that they might have life, and have it to the fullest.” Glory be to God!
The author keeps saying this wish for death is a “new” thing. But how different is it from kamikaze bombers in WWII?
#9 – while reprehensible, the kamikaze bombers, under flag of their country, were enaged in an action against an opposing military. I am not aware of their targeting civilians or using their own civilians. the difference is clear.
#6 – I also disagree with Dershowitz re: abortion. that does not invalidate the point he makes in this piece (or anywhere else).
For Dershowitz to make accusations of death worship is rich.
For Nasrallah, I say let’s make this a win-win.
Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence.
Such postmodern baloney. Men have always gone off to war to defend their honor in the face of disapproval from their women. Of course, the women sometimes SAY they want otherwise, but men have always known better.
Give me liberty or give me death.
It is easy to forget, given how appalled we are by these bombers’ actions, and by the illegal and anti-establishment nature of their acts, what the goal is of these actions.
The basic goal is political power.
It is political power, and not, directly, Heaven–or a harem of (ostensibly-temporary?) virgins, or what have you, that is the goal of these suicide bombings. Surely if the Muslim Paradise were the bombers’ true goal, there is in Islamic theology some other less-unpleasant means of booking passage there. So why this way? The answer is that it seems calculated to advance the political agenda of a certain party of Islamic supremacists.
The appalling nature of a suicide bomber’s act pales in comparison with the appalling thought of life under the rule of people who would ascend this particular ladder–painted with the blood of their companions and of uncounted innocent people–to political power.
The myth of female non-belligerence………again.
Might I point out the myth of the Amazons?
Might I point out the reality of Spartan mothers telling their sons to return “with this shield or on it”?
Might I note CS Lewis’s question as to whom you would rather deal with in a dispute between neighbors about a child’s bad behaviours, the mother or the father.
Not since an infamous speech to the UN about toxic testosterone has so much credence been given to such Romantic insipidity.
Joan of Arc, anyone? Lady Liberty? God, Mom, and Apple Pie?
Someone’s had too much postmodernistic pablum.
Not that I approve of suicide bombing, but it’s not that alien a note for a mother to strike for her son(s) to die for specific beliefs.
dwstroudmd, since you argue that this culture of death, in which mothers celebrate the suicidal acts of their children, is nothing new at all, can you point specifically to a previous culture in which this was embraced? Note that it is a far cry from sending your children off to battle accepting the possibility of their death in combat. I view this cultural embrace of death as indeed a frightening development which the West has failed to understand.
15, do you truly think that we are the first civilization in all history to think of this? Women sent their men off to battle gladly in 5,000 bc, for crying out loud! The human creature hasn’t changed.
Anonymous Layperson, I can point to the premier example of a cultural embrace of death by mothers unparalleled in human history. I merely point out that one culture’s view of worthy death is not so different, especially on the specious ground that women are less belligerent/bellicose than men. (You might have missed my eschewal of suicide bombing. One does wonder what the kamikazi maternal attitude was, though.) And for a male to argue a culture of death in the face of the embrace of abortion by women is to ignore the most defenseless amongst us who are totally dependent upon their mothers’ choices. FORTY MILLION (give or take a million) humans have died at the hands of their mothers in the USA alone since Roe vs Wade. That’s a poor argument for the nonbellicosity of the female of the species, significantly in the WEST. Not even Stalin achieved that level of destruction in the enforced starvation of relocated Russians. He only managed an estimated tens of millions.
But your point was?
I think it was Golda Meir that said something to the effect of “Peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.”
Africanized Anglican, Islamic teaching is that your good deeds will be weighed against your bad ones when you apply to Paradise. However, there is no guarantee, except for the specific Quranic guarantee that he who dies in the jihad will have instant entry to Paradise. This is why people are willing to be used as tools in this political campaign. They believe that God will reward them for these horrific acts.
[i]”We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”
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In The Bible, God says: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
More proof that we do NOT worship the same God.