The Egyptian press has been full of praise and glorification of Wafa Idris, the female suicide bomber who killed and maimed Jewish passersby in Jerusalem a few weeks ago. Apparently referring to the news coverage of the carnage in Jerusalem, an Egyptian opposition daily, al-Wafd, carried on article entitled, ?An Oscar-Winning Film.? According to the author of the piece, ?The heroine... is the beautiful, pure Palestinian woman, Wafa Idris, full of faith and willpower. I could find no one better than she, and I could find no film more wonderful than this, that shocked Israel's heart?? In the Egyptian mainstream, government-backed newspaper, al-Ahram, an article said that the suicide bomber ?revealed the meaning of the Palestinian personality.? In case it was not clear if that was praise or condemnation, the article continues, ?she revealed the heroism of the Palestinian woman? As a nurse, her work was like that of the merciful angels. She cared for the sick and injured, and rescued the wounded. And behold, she expanded the sphere of her work from saving individuals to saving the Palestinian nation.?
Not just the epitome of ?the Palestinian personality,? al-Ahram called the suicide bomber ?the Palestinian Joan of Arc.? Another Egyptian media outlet, Hadith al-Medina, as reported in the London-based al-Quds al-?Arabi, went further and likened Idris to Mary, the New Testament?s mother of Jesus, in an article by the head of the Department of Psychiatry at Cairo's ?Ein Shams University. ?If it was the Holy Spirit that placed a child in Mary's womb,? writes the Egyptian professor, ?perhaps that same holy spirit placed the bomb in the heart of Wafa, and enveloped her pure body with dynamite. From Mary's womb issued a child who eliminated oppression, while the body of Wafa became shrapnel that eliminated despair and aroused hope.?
The use of Mary imagery, however, was just a technique to compare the suicidal terrorist Idris to Jesus of Nazareth. The Hadith al-Medina text states, ?Perhaps you were born in the same city; perhaps even in the same neighborhood and in the same house. Perhaps you ate from the same date palm and drank from the same pure water flowing through the veins of the holy city? It is not surprising that the enemy in both cases was the same??
That was not the only instance of the use of Christian theological imagery in an attempt to sanctify the terrorist act of Wafa Idris. An al-?Arabi editorial saw Idris? act as redeeming of the entire people. About the ?day she rose to Heaven? the Egyptian editorial asks rhetorically, ?What is more beautiful than someone who turns the event of his death into the day of his return to life? What is more beautiful than this death that instills life? What is more beautiful than the transformation of a person from a chunk of flesh and blood to illuminating purity and a spirit that cuts across generations?? The Egyptian weekly editorial answers, ?How beautiful you were, oh Wafa Idris, the day you returned to life, with your noble and voluntary death in the bosom of Jerusalem. How beautiful you were, oh Wafa Idris, on the day of your martyrdom.? In a more direct theological reference, the article reaches a crescendo, ?How beautiful you were when you freed us from our sins. How beautiful you were when you elevated the humiliated nation to Paradise.?
[With thanks to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)]
Not just the epitome of ?the Palestinian personality,? al-Ahram called the suicide bomber ?the Palestinian Joan of Arc.? Another Egyptian media outlet, Hadith al-Medina, as reported in the London-based al-Quds al-?Arabi, went further and likened Idris to Mary, the New Testament?s mother of Jesus, in an article by the head of the Department of Psychiatry at Cairo's ?Ein Shams University. ?If it was the Holy Spirit that placed a child in Mary's womb,? writes the Egyptian professor, ?perhaps that same holy spirit placed the bomb in the heart of Wafa, and enveloped her pure body with dynamite. From Mary's womb issued a child who eliminated oppression, while the body of Wafa became shrapnel that eliminated despair and aroused hope.?
The use of Mary imagery, however, was just a technique to compare the suicidal terrorist Idris to Jesus of Nazareth. The Hadith al-Medina text states, ?Perhaps you were born in the same city; perhaps even in the same neighborhood and in the same house. Perhaps you ate from the same date palm and drank from the same pure water flowing through the veins of the holy city? It is not surprising that the enemy in both cases was the same??
That was not the only instance of the use of Christian theological imagery in an attempt to sanctify the terrorist act of Wafa Idris. An al-?Arabi editorial saw Idris? act as redeeming of the entire people. About the ?day she rose to Heaven? the Egyptian editorial asks rhetorically, ?What is more beautiful than someone who turns the event of his death into the day of his return to life? What is more beautiful than this death that instills life? What is more beautiful than the transformation of a person from a chunk of flesh and blood to illuminating purity and a spirit that cuts across generations?? The Egyptian weekly editorial answers, ?How beautiful you were, oh Wafa Idris, the day you returned to life, with your noble and voluntary death in the bosom of Jerusalem. How beautiful you were, oh Wafa Idris, on the day of your martyrdom.? In a more direct theological reference, the article reaches a crescendo, ?How beautiful you were when you freed us from our sins. How beautiful you were when you elevated the humiliated nation to Paradise.?
[With thanks to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)]