Not unexpectedly, Arafat-directed Arab terrorism has resumed with a plainly heightened level of barbarism and ferocity. Although this escalation of indiscriminate violence might appear inconsistent with Palestinian objectives, and may even seem irrational in view of the intended PLO/PA declaration of "Palestine," these "military" assaults upon Israel's cafes and pizza parlors represent an altogether predictable expression of the "sacred." It would, therefore, be a serious mistake for Israel to assume that Palestinian expressions of violence are animated by any usual combatant considerations of gain and loss. For Israel's Palestinian Arab enemies, violence and the sacred are always inseparable. To understand the rationale and operation of current terrorism against Israel, it is first necessary to understand PLO/PA/HAMAS/ISLAMIC JIHAD conceptions of the sacred. From these pertinent conceptions it will become clear that Arab terror against Jews is, at its heart, a manifestation of religious worship long known as human sacrifice.
Speaking to Palestinian security forces in Gaza just a short time ago, Yasser Arafat remarked, "They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath....Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together....but shortly we will meet again in heaven...." Central to this revealing remark is the duality of sacrificial behavior; the fighters "will kill and be killed....." Victory for the Palestinian people will come when both the Jews and the Arab "martyrs" suffer death. But while death for the Jews will be final and unheroic, a confirmation of Jewish limitations, death for the Palestinians will be only a temporary inconvenience on the way to immortality. What is more, it is only by killing Jews and subsequently being killed by them that true freedom from death can be realized. This is the true meaning of Palestinian terrorism against Israel: it is a form of sacred violence oriented toward the sacrifice of both enemies and martyrs. It is through the purposeful killing of Jews, today through terrorism, tomorrow through war, that the Palestinian embarking upon jihad can buy himself freedom from the penalty of dying. It is only through such killing, and not through diplomacy, that God's will may be done.
When Israel has understood that terrorism is an activity related to sacrifice it will be on the way to effective counter-terrorism. Until now, this is an understanding - like certain other aspects of Israeli security planning - that has lent itself to insubstantial theorizing. Now, immediately, Palestinian terrorism should be recognized, at least in part, as a violent and sacred act of mediation between certain Arabs and their deity.
Recently Arafat said, "The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches, and the mosques of Jerusalem." Here the "Chairman" (assuredly not prepared to sacrifice himself) was speaking of something other than a purely political kind of sacrifice. Rather, pointing toward death in the context of "holy war," it was a sacrifice wherein authentic disappearance would befall only the Jews, but "the last boy and the last little girl" would find eternal life. For the Palestinians who now regard terrorism as sacrifice, it is a sacred violence that rewards doubly. Killing the despised Jew (it is always the "Jew," never the Israeli) while simultaneously killing death for the Muslim, Palestinian sacrificial terror seems the altogether optimal fusion of religion and politics. Moreover, such terror also fulfils the timeless function of sacrifice, which is to quell violence within the community and to prevent internal communal conflicts from erupting.
What lessons can be learned here by Prime Minister Sharon and his security chiefs for more effective Israeli counter-terrorism? One answer emerges from a more generic investigation of sacrifice. Looking over several thousand years of history, all sacrificial victims are invariably distinguishable from the non-sacrificed by one essential trait: between these victims and the community a crucial social link is missing. In human sacrifice, the victim, who lacks a champion, is struck down without fear of reprisal. The practice of sacred violence via sacrifice is always one that can be undertaken without risk of vengeance.
Ironically, this feeling of immunity from Israeli and Jewish vengeance has, until now, permeated the Palestinian terrorist community. By responding to each act of terror with pleading and negotiation, the Jewish State under Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak persistently reinforced the PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad idea that the Arabs are engaged in genuinely sacrificial behavior. Revolted by a people that had refused to fight back because it wanted to be more decent, and that even scraped its own flesh and blood from sidewalk altars without giving up its hopes for "peace," these Arabs were convinced that their murders of defenseless Jewish women and children must have been sacred.
Today things are changing. For Israel under Sharon, it is possible, finally, to recognize that Palestinian terrorism and the sacred are closely linked. But before the Jewish State can protect itself from such terrorism, its policies will have to convince would-be murderers that Israel will not allow itself to become a sacrifice. To accomplish this all-important goal, these policies will have to express the certainty of vengeance whenever Jews are burned, maimed, disemboweled (Ramallah) and slaughtered by Arab terrorists. Although such an expression of justice would seem easy enough, for too long it has remained inconsistent with the prevailing self-sacrifice of Israel presumably mandated by a huge wooden horse called "Oslo."
There is one last important observation about sacrifice and terrorism. For the Palestinians who act upon linkage between violence and the sacred, the strength of their sacrificial behavior is drawn from concealment. Religion serves to mentally shelter the terrorists from expectations of reciprocal violence, just as their own violence against Israel seeks shelter in religion. To the extent that Israel can persuasively demystify the sacrificial inclinations of its enemies, openly de-linking these murders from the safety of Islamic institutions, it will stand a better chance of bringing its enemies within a required circle of Jewish vengeance and punishment. While such demystification may lead to escalations of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the short run, it can at least reduce the likelihood that the Jewish State as a whole will ultimately be sacrificed upon the increasingly bloodstained altar of Arab terror.
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Louis Rene Beres (Ph.D. Princeton, 1971) is the author of many books and articles dealing with terrorism and counter-terrorism. His work in these areas is well-known in American and Israeli military and intelligence communities.
Speaking to Palestinian security forces in Gaza just a short time ago, Yasser Arafat remarked, "They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath....Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together....but shortly we will meet again in heaven...." Central to this revealing remark is the duality of sacrificial behavior; the fighters "will kill and be killed....." Victory for the Palestinian people will come when both the Jews and the Arab "martyrs" suffer death. But while death for the Jews will be final and unheroic, a confirmation of Jewish limitations, death for the Palestinians will be only a temporary inconvenience on the way to immortality. What is more, it is only by killing Jews and subsequently being killed by them that true freedom from death can be realized. This is the true meaning of Palestinian terrorism against Israel: it is a form of sacred violence oriented toward the sacrifice of both enemies and martyrs. It is through the purposeful killing of Jews, today through terrorism, tomorrow through war, that the Palestinian embarking upon jihad can buy himself freedom from the penalty of dying. It is only through such killing, and not through diplomacy, that God's will may be done.
When Israel has understood that terrorism is an activity related to sacrifice it will be on the way to effective counter-terrorism. Until now, this is an understanding - like certain other aspects of Israeli security planning - that has lent itself to insubstantial theorizing. Now, immediately, Palestinian terrorism should be recognized, at least in part, as a violent and sacred act of mediation between certain Arabs and their deity.
Recently Arafat said, "The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches, and the mosques of Jerusalem." Here the "Chairman" (assuredly not prepared to sacrifice himself) was speaking of something other than a purely political kind of sacrifice. Rather, pointing toward death in the context of "holy war," it was a sacrifice wherein authentic disappearance would befall only the Jews, but "the last boy and the last little girl" would find eternal life. For the Palestinians who now regard terrorism as sacrifice, it is a sacred violence that rewards doubly. Killing the despised Jew (it is always the "Jew," never the Israeli) while simultaneously killing death for the Muslim, Palestinian sacrificial terror seems the altogether optimal fusion of religion and politics. Moreover, such terror also fulfils the timeless function of sacrifice, which is to quell violence within the community and to prevent internal communal conflicts from erupting.
What lessons can be learned here by Prime Minister Sharon and his security chiefs for more effective Israeli counter-terrorism? One answer emerges from a more generic investigation of sacrifice. Looking over several thousand years of history, all sacrificial victims are invariably distinguishable from the non-sacrificed by one essential trait: between these victims and the community a crucial social link is missing. In human sacrifice, the victim, who lacks a champion, is struck down without fear of reprisal. The practice of sacred violence via sacrifice is always one that can be undertaken without risk of vengeance.
Ironically, this feeling of immunity from Israeli and Jewish vengeance has, until now, permeated the Palestinian terrorist community. By responding to each act of terror with pleading and negotiation, the Jewish State under Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu and Barak persistently reinforced the PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad idea that the Arabs are engaged in genuinely sacrificial behavior. Revolted by a people that had refused to fight back because it wanted to be more decent, and that even scraped its own flesh and blood from sidewalk altars without giving up its hopes for "peace," these Arabs were convinced that their murders of defenseless Jewish women and children must have been sacred.
Today things are changing. For Israel under Sharon, it is possible, finally, to recognize that Palestinian terrorism and the sacred are closely linked. But before the Jewish State can protect itself from such terrorism, its policies will have to convince would-be murderers that Israel will not allow itself to become a sacrifice. To accomplish this all-important goal, these policies will have to express the certainty of vengeance whenever Jews are burned, maimed, disemboweled (Ramallah) and slaughtered by Arab terrorists. Although such an expression of justice would seem easy enough, for too long it has remained inconsistent with the prevailing self-sacrifice of Israel presumably mandated by a huge wooden horse called "Oslo."
There is one last important observation about sacrifice and terrorism. For the Palestinians who act upon linkage between violence and the sacred, the strength of their sacrificial behavior is drawn from concealment. Religion serves to mentally shelter the terrorists from expectations of reciprocal violence, just as their own violence against Israel seeks shelter in religion. To the extent that Israel can persuasively demystify the sacrificial inclinations of its enemies, openly de-linking these murders from the safety of Islamic institutions, it will stand a better chance of bringing its enemies within a required circle of Jewish vengeance and punishment. While such demystification may lead to escalations of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the short run, it can at least reduce the likelihood that the Jewish State as a whole will ultimately be sacrificed upon the increasingly bloodstained altar of Arab terror.
-------------------
Louis Rene Beres (Ph.D. Princeton, 1971) is the author of many books and articles dealing with terrorism and counter-terrorism. His work in these areas is well-known in American and Israeli military and intelligence communities.