ABSTRACT
On the eve of his ‘self-martyrdom’ operation, a young Palestinian recorded the following video testament:
Suicide bombing, or self-martyrdom as Hamas calls it, is often portrayed as the perfect example of ‘religious terrorism’. It is (supposedly) carried out in the name of God by people claiming religion as their motivation. It involves behaviour that a secular rationality assumedly abhors and thus fits faultlessly into a paradigm which characterises religion as an ‘irrational’ phenomenon. And yet, as the above quote shows, all is not as it seems. For sure, the suicide bomber declares his religious motivation – his longing to ‘[meet] the lord of the Worlds’ and ensure that ‘Palestine remain[s] Islamic’. But in the same breath, he places his impending death in the service of not only liberating Palestine – ‘out of love for this homeland and for the sake of the freedom and honour of this people’ – but so that Hamas ‘remains a torch lighting the roads of all the perplexed and all the tormented and oppressed’. If his testament is anything to go by, this young man’s motivation is as much nationalist – even, to an extent, internationalist and anti-colonialist – as it is religious. It is also partisan, in terms of seeking to ensure Hamas’ continued survival in the intense competition between rival Palestinian groups.
