Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

"RACE: ARAB, SEX: TERRORIST" – THE GENDER

POLITICS OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE
EAST

EUGENE SENSENIG-DABBOUS

IN: MANSOUR EID (ED.), VIOLENCE - REALITIES AND CONCERNS, NDU PRESS,
2008, ISBN: 678-9953-457-72-7

Preface

Issues related to violence in the Middle East are rarely seen through the prism of gender
mainstreaming. By ethnicizing terror and relating it directly to the issues of religion and
development, media pundits and experts on the region have trivialized the experience
of the men and women in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa who are
confronted daily with oppressive regimes limiting their freedom of expression and the
realization of their individual potential.

This article will attempt to illustrate how the current debate on global terrorism
largely ignores the manner in which organized and socially legitimized threats against
the civilian population play themselves out in the region. The hegemonic control over
the manner in which terrorism is defined will be the primary focus of this study. Who
asks the questions and who gives the answers with respect to the way in which terror is
categorized, surveyed and analyzed? Are certain group interests being served and, if so,
are other elements in society thereby being marginalized? Who has the cultural, social,
and economic power to determine the political debate on violence in the public sphere?
Can and should the private sphere be included in this discussion? These largely
academic questions do indeed take on a new character when one works and lives in an
environment impacted daily by direct and indirect threats of terror.
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

As a rule, terror is largely viewed as a criminal and political problem and dealt
with from the perspective of conflict prevention and transformation. At interest here are
issues related to social stability, political order, and the protection of existing power
relationships. The often unstated assumption is that a reduction in violence will
somehow lead to a decline in the threat of terror. This definition of terrorism, however,
assumes that terror is located largely, if not exclusively, in the public sphere, that terror
is an activity rather than a way of life and, finally, that the way of life upon which any
social system is based would automatically be endangered by the introduction of terror
or the threat thereof. As a result, any fundamental questioning of existing social power
relationships can easily be linked to the terrorism charge, thus blocking a debate which
might claim that terror itself is a "way of life."

Can terror be considered part of our day-to-day experience? Has it embedded

itself so deeply into the way we live our lives that we are often unaware of it? If one
takes the recent report of the United Nations "High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges
and Change," titled "A more secure world: our shared responsibility" as a point of
departure, there would seem to be few regions or realms of our daily lives that are not
in some way impacted by terror.
"Description of terrorism as 'any action … that is intended to cause death or serious
bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its
nature or context, is to intimidate a population … to do or to abstain from doing any
act'."1

Women's and gender studies have developed the gender mainstreaming

approach in order to facilitate research related to the manner in which various social
phenomena impact gender roles and how gender, in return, determines a wide variety of
social interactions. Gender mainstreaming terror can help to understand the complex
manner in which violent acts, or threats thereof, are utilized in the Middle East in order

1 Doc: A/59/565, Distr.: General 2 December 2004, http://www.un.org/secureworld/, p. 164:

"That definition of terrorism should include the following elements:
(a) Recognition, in the preamble, that State use of force against civilians is regulated by the Geneva Conventions and other
instruments, and, if of sufficient scale, constitutes a war crime by the persons concerned or a crime against humanity;
(b) Restatement that acts under the 12 preceding anti–terrorism conventions are terrorism, and a declaration that they are a
crime under international law; and restatement that terrorism in time of armed conflict is prohibited by the Geneva
Conventions and Protocols;
(c) Reference to the definitions contained in the 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of
Terrorism and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004);
(d) Description of terrorism as "any action, in addition to actions already specified by the existing conventions on aspects of
terrorism, the Geneva Conventions and Security Council resolution 1566 (2004), that is intended to cause death or serious
bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants, when the purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a
population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act."

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Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

to intimidate a population and force it to act, or abstain from acting, in a specific

manner. Gender mainstreaming terror can also be used to overcome the artificial
separation between the public and private spheres; a distinction which was gradually
introduced into the Western scientific community as a result of the Enlightenment,
followed by its almost complete acceptance during three centuries of mass
industrialization, urbanization, and commercialization of society. Although a clear
division of Middle Eastern society into a public and private sector was never truly a
part of reality on the ground throughout the region, it has found its way into academic
thinking on many levels. As will be demonstrated below, gender mainstreaming can
overcome this methodological impediment by highlighting the manner in which family
ties, economic enterprise, political activity, and the life of the individual are linked to
each other. A gendered approach to terror will also be used in order to consider whether
systematic threats of violence are being used in a similar manner both in politics and in
the family and to determine whether these two levels are linked. Thus, gender
mainstreaming terror should be able to facilitate a comprehensive view of both the
"productive" aspects of terror, i.e. violence on the ground carried out largely by men,
and the "reproduction" of terrorist capabilities, i.e. the predominantly female
responsibility of caring for the day-to-day needs of an overwhelmingly male terrorist
network.

This article will incorporate gender into the debate on violence from two
perspectives. First, the author assumes that terrorism, i.e. the intentional and systematic
use of violence to alter the behavior of a specific population, is experienced by men and
women in the Middle East quite differently. It will be impossible to empirically test this
hypothesis in the time and space allotted to this article; especially because the use of
terror can also be closely linked to differences in linguistic and confessional group
identity, citizenship, and social class. For this reason a few examples will be chosen
which seem to illustrate the overlapping nature of terrorism in the Middle East when
seen from the perspective of a small and unrepresentative sample of women and men.
This article will highlight the experience of indigenous populations in Iraq and
Lebanon, as well as the manner in which terror impacts the lives of Asian and African
migrants throughout the region.

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Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

This attempt to develop a gendered understanding of terror in the Middle East

will be based largely on recently published studies dealing with terrorism and anti-
terror policies, one the one hand, and gender mainstreaming theory and praxis, on the
other. It will also reflect the thinking of the UN with respect to the role that gender
should play in the field of conflict resolution in the region. Furthermore, work on
women's studies and migration and minority studies in the Middle East will be
integrated into this approach. Finally, the author's personal experience as a researcher in
the field of gender studies and migration studies in Central Europe and the Middle East,
as a university level educator in Lebanon for almost a decade, and as an activist on
social justice and interfaith related issues, will enlighten both the outlook and
methodology of this article.

1. Fighting Terrorism

US-President: Jesus, is that the best you can come up with, what about, you
know, international terrorism!
General: Well Sir, we are not going to reopen missile factories just to fight some
creeps running around and exploding rental cars, are we Sir?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Canadian_Bacon.jpg, "Canadian Bacon", 1995, USA, Director: Michael

Moore, retrieved 28 November 2007)
"Beset by falling approval ratings, a desperate U.S. president and his closet
advisers launch a rally-around-the-flag campaign against the country’s newest
enemy – Canada." (cover text)

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It has become common to link the debate about the roots of terrorism to a need
to defeat it on a global scale. The relativist 1980s slogan, "One man's terrorist is another
man's freedom fighter," promulgated by then President Ronald Reagan in order to
defend US government sponsorship of terrorist counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua,
has long been replaced by a more fundamentalist mentality, which portrays terror as
being diametrically opposed to the interests of organized society and its power elites.
Opponents of the US led "war on terror" maintain that the black-and-white mentality
predominant in the current approach to political violence is part of the problem. There
is a need, according to this understanding, to look for the roots of terrorism in order to
escape the vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence which has dominated various
regional crises since the end of the Cold War.

In the months immediately following 11 September 2001, the international

debate on terror level still bore the marks of the more diversified forms of discourse
prevalent in the 20th century. In a briefing by the UN's "Counter Terrorism Committee"
on 18 January 2002, terrorism was seen as being fed by specific root causes such as
poverty, intolerance, regional conflicts, exclusion from basic human rights protection,
injustice, and underdevelopment. Then UN General Secretary Kofi Annan stated during
the same event that the best "prophylactics against terror" were the support for
international human rights, democracy, and justice.2

Although the UN Security Council did lend its support in late 2001 (e.g.
Resolutions 1368 and 1373) to the American military's war on terror and the "axis of
evil" as a response to the terrorists attacks on the United States, both the international
community of states and many global and regional civil society players have pushed
hard for a more nuanced approach ever since. The following report from the UN "High-
level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change," under the leadership of the former
Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, is just one example of the counter-currents in
the debate on terror, which have attempted to place emphasis on the root causes rather
than attempt to militarily defeat evil.

2 See: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/reports/sc2002.htm; 2002 Round-up 6.

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The following table, gleaned from the above mentioned UN report, compares a
list of root causes of terror to a list of measures contained in a suggested comprehensive
strategy of approximately the same length. This index of causes and counter measures
contains items mentioned largely in §145 to §164 of the report, as well as various other
paragraphs.

Roots of Terror and the most Important Counter Measures

"Root causes" of terrorism "Comprehensive strategy" to combat
terrorism
§ 21: § 148:
1) poverty 1) promoting social and political rights
2) foreign occupation 2) rule of law and democratic reform
3) absence of human rights and 3) working to end occupations
democracy 4) (working to) address major political
4) religious and other intolerance grievances
5) civil violence 5) combating organized crime
§ 23: 6) reducing poverty and unemployment
6) transnational organized crime 7) stopping State collapse
7) corruption 8) efforts to counter extremism and
8) illicit trade and money –laundering intolerance
§ 34: 9) education and fostering public debate
9) spread of dangerous (nuclear, radiolo- 10) gender empowerment
gical, chemical or biological) materials 11) political freedom, civil liberties
10) (inability of) States to exercise their 12) address the problem of terrorist
sovereignty financing
§ 94: § 151:
11) (lack of) protection of democratically 13) sanctions against individuals and
elected Governments from States that supported terrorism
unconstitutional overthrow § 154:
12) (lack of) operational norms on 14) technical support (for) States seeking
minority rights operational support for counter-terrorism
§ 145: activities
13) (lack of) the rule of law 15) clearing house for State-to-State
14) (lack of) rules of war that protect provision of military, police and border
civilians control assistance
15) (lack of) tolerance among peoples and § 155:
nations 16) establish a capacity-building trust fund
16) (lack of) peaceful resolution of § 156:
conflict 17) schedule of predetermined sanctions
17) despair for State non-compliance
18) humiliation § 157:
19) political oppression 18) sending an unequivocal message that
20) extremism terrorism is never an acceptable tactic,
21) regional conflict(s) even for the most defensible of causes
22) weak State(‘s inability) to maintain
law and order

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Based on "A more secure world: our shared responsibility: Report of the High-level Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change", A/59/565, 01. December 2004.

This comprehensive strategy, which predates the failure of American foreign

policy in Iraq, links coercive measures to cultural, social, and political steps, thus
offering an alternative, along the lines of the critics of US policy in the MENA region.
It highlights core political issues such as foreign occupation, poverty, and absence of
human rights and democracy, as well as important emotional issues such as humiliation
and despair. However, this certainly well intentioned report neglects to ask whether
there is a causal relationship between these various (root) causes and (specific violent)
effects. The list of causes of terror, offered by the UN above, is in many ways an
approximate description of daily life in many parts of the developing world. Although
very few governments around the world have introduced anti-terrorism measures
remotely similar to those in the United States – while at the same time tolerating a
burgeoning shadow market in illegal arms and ammunition – public acts of organized
terror remain the exception; this despite the rapid growth in mobility, the enormous
expansion of the ICT sector and the relative ease with which money can still be
transferred around the world.

Considering the prevalence of the "root causes for terrorism" (i.e. VI.B.4. §164
of "A more secure world") in the day-to-day lives of most of the world's population,
why haven't more people resorted to acts of terror in order to adequately respond to
these "roots?" Might this indicate that the UN has not adequately described the
situation? It should also be noted here that although "gender empowerment" is included
in the list of measures deemed necessary to effectively combat terror, sexist oppression
and a lack of gender equality awareness are not considered to be important enough to
make it onto the list of root causes of terror.

2. Gender Mainstreaming Terrorism Discourse

According to the above cited UN document on combating terror, "gender

empowerment" can play a significant role as a "catalyst" for change.
(b) Efforts to counter extremism and intolerance, including through education and
fostering public debate. One recent innovation by UNDP, the Arab Human
Development Report, has helped catalyse a wide ranging debate within the Middle

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East on the need for gender empowerment, political freedom, rule of law and civil
liberties;
(High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change: "A more secure world: our
shared responsibility", VI.B.1. §148, "A comprehensive strategy".)

When considering the large number of individuals worldwide who are affected
by the core roots of terrorism (including despair, humiliation, and oppression), why
have they rarely led to organized forms of political violence targeting innocent
civilians? Based on the conventional definitions of terrorism, there seems to be almost
no causal relationship between injustice, exploitation, and arbitrary action, on the one
hand, and violent responses to such intolerable conditions, on the other. Is it then at all
possible to explain, let alone achieve some level of predictability for, the fact that in
only a few isolated cases groups of individuals converge in order to carry out well
planned, brutal, illegal, and politically motivated actions against others? Perhaps one
should give up on an attempt to limit terrorism to such a narrow set of socially and
politically motivated violent actions? By gender mainstreaming terrorism an attempt
will be made to overcome these limitations and expand the concept of terror to a
socially more relevant set of factors.

One year before the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the UN Security Council
passed Resolution 1325 (2000) with the declared goal of introducing gender
mainstreaming to an area of violent political action for which it was directly
responsible, i.e. United Nations intervention in the field of conflict prevention and post-
crisis peace negotiations. The Security Council determined, in Resolution 1325, that
gender mainstreaming should be integrated in a binding form, enabling the introduction
of "a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations, (encouraging) progress (reports)
on gender mainstreaming throughout peacekeeping missions," as well as suggesting a
set of less formalized proposals for voluntary "financial, technical and logistical
support for gender-sensitive training efforts." The member states of the UN were given
the mandate to support these initiatives within the respective international institutions
in which they were involved.
One of the main weaknesses of internationally sponsored gender mainstreaming
measures is the assumption that they are limited to merely enhancing and expanding on
already existing, "normal" (i.e. male) concepts and values prevalent in society, as a

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whole, and social science research, in particular. According to Cynthia Enloe, a pioneer
in the gender mainstreaming of international relations, the UN and other bodies
championing global justice have merely "inserted" 3 gender mainstreaming into a
debate that is otherwise largely sexist and blind to the specific experiences of women
and men. This gender ignorance in the study of international relations, as well as the
more specialized field of political violence, has also been described by Adam Jones, a
leading figure in a neighboring research sector, i.e. men's studies. Jones' work on
genocide4 has attempted to position masculinity as a significant criteron when
surveying and measuring trends in political violence. Accordingly, the male and female
perspective is weighted equally when considering the victims and perpetrators of terror.

The work of Øystein Gullvåg Holter and Adam Jones on "gendercide," i.e.
gender forms of genocidal violence, has broken new ground in the advancement of
gender mainstreaming terror. Gullvåg Holter and Jones have developed an index which
can be utilized in order to measure the gradual introduction of gendered forms of
extermination in any given society. Using the "classical" historical examples in the
field, including the Ottoman, National Socialist, and Rwandan cases, the authors have
located a series of warning signals. These can be used to analyze current cross-border
and internal conflicts such as East Pakistan/Bangladesh, East Timor, or Chechnya.
Gendercide studies have determined that males are both the perpetrators and the victims
in the early stages of most violent political conflicts. Men attempt to search for,
incapacitate, or destroy the combat-ready men and boys within the ranks of the
opposing population. Women – both as victims and perpetrators – remain largely
uninvolved at the outset. In order to explain this phenomenon, Jones assumes that men
are much more likely to respond violently to any attempt to undermine their socially
dominant role in society. In conflicts between groups, male players will attempt to
symbolically weaken the social fabric of the opposing side by attacking the masculinity
of their opponents. This can also occur indirectly through socio-economic measures
aimed at the male head of the family, as breadwinner and defender of his clan's honor.

3 "Their models were constructed without women, and without men-as-men, and 'inserting gender' then appears both
difficult and unnecessary." Carol Cohn, A conversation with Cynthia Enloe: Feminists look at masculinity and the men who
wage war, In: Signs, Summer 28 (2003) 4, p. 1193. http:// uit.no/getfile.php?SiteId=52& PageId=1410&FileId=228
uit.no/getfile.php?SiteId=52& PageId=1410&FileId=228.
4 See: http://www.jha.ac/articles/a080.htm; Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention: Incorporating the Gender Variable,
Document Posted: 26 November 2002; Adam Jones, The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, Profesor, División de Estudios
Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Carret. México-Toluca 3655, Col. Lomas de Santa
Fe, C.P. 01210, México, D.F., MÉXICO.

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Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

Males respond to such experiences more readily then females by attempting to

physically eliminate the male members of opposing groups.

Ironically, by gender mainstreaming gendercide research it becomes apparent

that the personal subjectivity of the respective scholars can play a significant role in
determining their academic perspective. Whereas male researchers (e.g. Jones und
Gullvåg Holter) tend to concentrate on introducing a gendered perspective to fields of
study already seen as being traditional male domains, including the military, extremism,
the economy or the crises facing the social welfare system, female scholars (including
Charli Carpenter, Evelin Gerda Lindner, and Shahrazad Mojab)5 have located
gendercidal tendencies within the very fabric of patriarchal society and the power
relationships upon which it is based. Accordingly, gendercide is part and parcel of the
daily lives of hundreds of millions of women throughout the world. By targeting male
victims in times of crisis, the violent expression of these tendencies merely becomes
obvious to men. To paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, gendercide is the continuation of
patriarchy by other means.

For many researchers, gendercide, as well as other forms of gendered terror, can
only be dealt with effectively by introducing significant changes in the very nature of
gendered social power structures. Seen from this potentially radical perspective,
"gender mainstreaming terrorism" also means questioning the power structures upon
which research in the field is carried out. Gender mainstreaming the study of political
violence would thereby include reconsidering the choice of topics, methodologies, and
the "definition monopoly" now being enjoyed by the established authorities in the field.

By largely monopolizing the terms and categories used in the debate on terror in
the Middle East, Western European and North American terrorism experts have pushed
a gendered debate on social power relationships to the sidelines. This has little to do
with conflicts between the left and the right or between the good and the axis of evil.
As Edward Said pointed out as early as 1981 in Covering Islam, or as Noam Chomsky
illustrated in Middle East Illusions two decades later (2003), discourse on global

5 Carpenter, Ciarli, Beyond Gendercide: Incorporating Gender into Comparative Genocide Studies. In: International Journal of
Human Rights 6 (2002) 4, p. 77-101. Lindner, Evelin Gerda. Gendercide and Humiliation in Human Rights and Honor
Societies. Journal of Genocide Research 4 (2002) 1, pp. 137-155; Shahrazad, Mojab, Kurdish Women in the Zone of Genocide
and Genderzide. In: Diana Mukalled (Hg.) Women and War in the Arab World, Al-Raida, Vol. XXI (2003), 103, p. 20-25.

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hegemony also has a gender dimension. By monopolizing the process of definition,

with respect to research on terrorism, Western authors also monopolized the debate on
male and female roles in the "Orient." This process, according to Said, has been
ongoing ever since the Occident turned the tables on the Orient and began dominating
it in the 17th and 18th centuries.

As shall be discussed further down in this article, scholars, journalist, and

activists dealing with the situation in the Middle East have long attempted to establish
more precise definitions for the commonly used terms "victim" and "perpetrator."
When dealing with the violent conflicts now raging in Iraq, Palestine/Israel, and
Lebanon, gender mainstreaming can serve as a useful tool in both understanding and
dealing with politically motivated violence. A cross-section of this work will be
introduced in detail into the following sections of this article.

The spectacular terrorist attacks against targets around the world at the
beginning of the 21st century have many authors to search for new explanations for
political violence. Linking gender studies to research done on international relations
and conflict resolution has provided a long list of significant insights. Both Michael
Kimmel and Jessica Stern have indicated that the use of terror by the United States, as
well as by its opponents in the Middle East, is closely linked to an attempt to reaffirm
violated feelings of male dignity. Rhiannon Talbot and Giles Foden have found that
male and female terrorists share a common need to combine private/personal
experiences (such as humiliation, despair, alienation, and injustice) with socially and
politically relevant goals (including national liberation and respect for one's people and
religious faith). Stern has also attempted to prove, using numerous interviews with
religiously motivated terrorists, that political violence can be part of a desperate healing
process in which male perpetrators use terror in order to deal with feelings of
inferiority, forced inactivity, and hopelessness. According to Zillah Eisenstein, in her
article on Sexual Humiliation, Gender Confusion and the Horrors at Abu Ghraib the
American use of gendered terror methods has proven to be largely counter productive.
By engendering feelings of fear, insecurity, and arbitrary terror within the
predominantly Arab and/or Muslim populations it now has under its control, the US has
ensured that many individuals will ultimately feel justified to respond with "counter-

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terror," thus launching a new round in the "war against evil." Finally, my own work on
the editorial board and as a guest editor for the Lebanese women's studies quarterly Al-
Raida (The Pioneer) has helped me acquire a basic understanding of the current work
now being carried out in the field of gender research in the Middle East. Of particular
significance are four recent issues of Al-Raida on non-Arab women in the Arab world,
women and war, Arab masculinity, and Arab diaspora women.

Despite all the efforts now being made to offer alternative theoretical and
methodological approaches to the Middle East, things have largely remained the same.
An overview of the alternative academic landscape might lead to the following
conclusion. Despite repeated attacks against their hegemonic position, the definition
monopoly enjoyed by Western experts has survived unscathed and its supporters remain
in the best of health. All attempts by the propagators of gender mainstreaming to storm
the bastions of traditional terrorism research have been successfully repelled, although
minor breaches have become evident. However, despite this proven track record in
successfully resisting penetration into the field of terrorism studies, minor successes
can be documented. These few bright spots will be dealt with in following, based on
examples taken from a variety of minority and gender studies articles dealing with the
Middle East.

3. Terror as an Attitudinal Stabilizer in the Private Sphere?

As was mentioned at the outset of this article, the current anti-terrorism debate largely
assumes that terror is a destabilizing factor which must be combated if one wishes to
protect existing power relationships.6 Furthermore, terror was seen, both by its friends
and its enemies, as a predominantly public affair. Historical supporters of terrorism,
such as Michael Bakunin, Prince Peter Kropotkin, or Carlo Pisacane, as well as
declared opponents, including Leon Trotsky, understood the "direct action" associated
with terror to be "propaganda of the deed" (propagande par le fait), which only made
sense if a large number of people were aware of it. Finally, those political systems

6 In following, a common definition used in the German speaking world: "Terroristische Aktionen sind nach gängiger
Auffassung Gewaltanwendungen gegen zivile Ziele und Nicht-Kombatanten mit dem Ziel, Furcht und Schrecken zu verbreiten
sowie möglicherweise bei einer Drittpartei um Sympathie und Schadenfreude zu werben, mit dem weiteren Ziel, das
bestehende Herrschaftssystem auszuhöhlen und zu stürzen;" vgl. hierzu Nohlen 2001; Hoffman 2002 und Heine 2004
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorismus#Was_ist_Terrorismus_und_was_nicht.3F_-_Versuch_einer_Abgrenzung, Was ist
Terrorismus und was nicht? – Versuch einer Abgrenzung.

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which were based on terrorizing their populations, such as the "Règne de la Terreur"
during the French Revolution, or the totalitarian regimes headed by Benito Mussolini,
Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler, relied on terror as a high profile experience. The
methods used, choice of victims, and the purported causes of terrorist action were
always well known to the general public.

Terror has traditionally been understood as being: 1) socially destabilizing, 2) an

action oriented rather than attitudinal phenomenon, and 3) a pervasively public
experience. In the Middle East, all three characteristics attributed to terrorism seldom
overlap completely; in many cases these prescribed attributes can indeed prove to be
partially inaccurate or even fully irrelevant. Based on the experience of three minority
groups, an attempt will be made to document (in an anecdotal rather than representative
manner) that terrorism in the Middle East can have the exact opposite effect, i.e. it can
be: 1) a uniquely stabilizing, rather than destabilizing factor, which 2) often has more to
do with the "way of life" in a certain community than with specific policy directives
and decisions (i.e. actions) and 3) which straddles the boundaries between the public
and private sphere, often reaching deep into the personal lives of families members.

Three topic areas have been chosen in order to illustrate the nature of terror in
the Middle East. In the first example, a description of the lives of minority women in
Iraq and of immigrants in various Arab countries is intended to illustrate how terrorism
(NB: using the definition suggested by the UN) is as much a part of the private sphere
as it is of the public domain. The use of terror is used systematically in these cases in
order to guarantee that the existing gendered social order goes unchallenged. In the
second example, various terrorist policies from around the region will be briefly
described, thus attempting to demonstrate that the sustained and intentional threat of
organized violence against innocent civilians is an attitudinal phenomenon in the
Middle East. Finally, in the third example, the terrorist violence used against women
and minorities in the Middle East will be presented as a system stabilizing way of life,
rather than the result of individual policy decisions aimed at dealing with specific
issues and reaching declared political goals.

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Terror in the Private Sphere

By any definition, the Middle Eastern practice of "honor killing" is an "action … that is
intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants" and "the
purpose of such an act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population," thus
causing it to act in a certain manner or abstain from certain actions. Thus, according to
the above cited UN description of terror, the killing of (or threat of killing) a woman by
her male family members in order to defend the "family honor" is indeed an act of
terrorism when compared to international norms. Although this practice has been
criminalized in many Arab countries, surveys in Lebanon and Iraqi Kurdistan indicate
that there has been no significant reduction in "honor crime" in recent years.7 This form
of threatening female members of the extended family in order to manipulate their
behavior remains a common method of maintaining gendered power relationships
within traditional clans, both in rural and urban settings.

According to a study by Shahrazad Mojab, published in 2004, the rates of

"honor crime" in the predominantly Kurdish regions of Iraq has actually increased
within the last decade.8 The following anecdotal description of life in Kurdistan in the
months immediately following the fall of Saddam Hussein offers insight into the
perception of Iraqi women towards their ongoing systematic oppression – be it
patriarchal, ethnic or political. It was taken from a special issue of the women's studies
journal, Al-Raida, on non-Arab women in the Arab world.
Shortly after Baghdad fell to American forces, I heard so many Kurdish friends
express their jubilation that, when talking on the phone to another Kurdish friend in
Iraq, I asked a loaded question: "Are you happy? You are free! Saddam is gone!" My
friend responded wryly, "Do you think merely removing Saddam will make me free?
If you really want to make me free, if you really want it, you will have to kill my
whole tribe. Oh – and after that you will have to kill all the towns people too,
because if my tribe is gone the townspeople will start to busy themselves with
watching me. No, I am not free now that Saddam is gone. It will take a much greater
effort to make me truly free." She let her comments linger a bit as I struggled to find
a response. Then she added in a more serious tone, "But yes, I am happy! Now that
Saddam is gone people are dancing in the streets. Everyone is jubilant here."9
7 See: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id =8198, Thursday, September 9, 2004, Laws
in Arab world remain lenient on honor crimes, Hundreds of women in region are murdered each year in name of family
reputation; By Jessy Chahine, Daily Star staff; http://www.nahost-politik.de/irak/frauen.htm, Vorbilder für das ganze Land:
Frauen aus dem Nord-Irak, Von Golnaz Esfandiari, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
8 Shahrazad Mojab, No "Safe Haven" – Violence against Women in Iraqi Kurdistan. In: Wenona Giles / Jennifer Hyndman, Sites
of Violence, Gender and Conflict Zones. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, pp. 108-133, p. 128.
9 Diane E. King, The Doubly Bound World of Kurdish Women. In: Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous (ed.), Non-Arab Women in the
Arab World, Al-Raida, Vol. XX (2003), No. 101-102, p. 67.

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Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

Over the last few decades, international surveys by the United Nations, as well
as a variety of other international governmental and non-governmental organizations,
have provided a wealth of empirical data on the position of guest workers from Sri
Lanka, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Sudan, and other countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa. Their treatment in the households throughout the Arab world has been described
as oppressive, brutal, and systematic; the ILO even stating that it violates the
international ban on slavery.10 The methods used to discipline foreign maids throughout
the region – NB: including in Palestine 11 – could be described as "action … that is
intended to cause death or serious bodily harm," and thus be formally categorized as
terrorism. These practices indicate that the socially sanctioned use of systematic
violence against women in the case of "honor crime," seems to have been extended to
include female guest workers.12

Terror as an Attitude

The vast wealth of international research on violence, intimidation, oppression, and

killing in the private sphere has helped establish universal benchmarks which can be
applied to the Middle East with relative ease, despite the obvious differences between
the social and cultural norms existing in various parts of the world. With respect to
violence in the family, there do indeed seem to be a number of similarities across
regions, one of which is that threats against wives and female partners are seldom
actually carried out. As a rule of thumb, a man can normally persuade his wife or
female partner to act (or refrain from acting) in a certain manner by merely announcing
his intention to use physical or sexual violence. Living under the constant threat of
violence causes many victims to suffer from severe depression, feelings of self-hate,

10 ILO, http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/arpro/beirut/infoservices/report/report05.htm; Mission Reports & Studies,

Migrant Women Domestic Workers in Lebanon, Dr. Ray Jureidini, 2001.
11 Mary Abowd, In Service to the Movement. In: Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous (ed.), Non-Arab Women in the Arab World, Al-
Raida, Vol. XX (2003), No. 101-102, p. 33-35.
12 Alia al Zougbi, The Street of Slaves. In: Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous (ed.) Non-Arab Women in the Arab World, Al-
Raida, Vol. XX, No. 101-102, 2003, pp. 27-32. According to Ray Jureidini, in Mission Reports & Studies, Migrant Women
Domestic Workers in Lebanon, ILO, 2001,
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/arpro/beirut/infoservices/report/report05.htm, "Three categories of main violations
could be short listed: – Violence or the threat of violence from employers, recruitment agencies, police and general security
forces; – Denial of freedom in terms of withholding of passports, restriction of movement outside the residence of employment
and limitations on outside communications; – Exploitative working conditions including withholding of wages, long hours of
work, inadequate or no leisure time and insecure living quarters."

15
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

and isolation. Terror is namely then most effective when victims are unable to
overcome their fear and thereby remain incapable of resistance. 13

There are many historical examples in which terror has been used to intimidate
specific ethnic groups, occupied populations, or entire countries. These include the
racist terror of the Ku-Klux-Klan in the United States, the ongoing use of death
squadrons in Latin America in order to counter popular social movements within the
ranks of the impoverished peasants, and industrial workers, the use of humiliation,
intimidation, and arbitrary acts of violence in order to keep the indigenous populations
in North and South America, Australia, South Africa, Palestine, and Kurdistan under
control, and finally gradual exclusion and introduction of terrorist measures against the
Jewish population of Germany, Austria, and ultimately most of Europe during the rule
of the Third Reich.

As a Central European immigrant in the Middle East, I have had the opportunity
to experience attitudinal terrorism first hand. Having married a Lebanese and migrated
to Beirut in the late winter of 1999, I was able to observe how a very limited number of
terrorist attacks against the opponents of Syrian occupation were enough to keep an
entire nation in check. This form of low intensity state terrorism had led most Lebanese
to acquiesce, choosing the lesser evil of foreign occupation to the supposed alternative
of renewed civil war. With the assassination of the former, anti-Syrian Prime Minister,
Rafic Hariri, in February of 2005, the Lebanese victims were able to overcome their
fear and thus successfully resist Syrian occupation. Despite a wave of bombings and
assassinations in the two and a half years since the end of foreign occupation – carried
out by "unknown perpetrators" – and the ongoing conflicts between the various
confessional and partisan camps – which have been fueled by foreign intervention on
both sides – the Lebanese population has remained steadfast. To remain with the
comparison to family violence: the battered wife, having called his bluff, is no longer
willing to return to her abusive husband.

13 Ghena Ismail, Anatomy of an "Honor Crime", pp. 42-43; Mirna Lattouf, Women, Education and Social Change. Unlearning
Abuse, p. 44-45, both in: Laurie King-Irani, Women, the Media and Sustainable Human Development, Al-Raida, Vol. XIII,
(1996), No. 72,. Also see http://www.aacd.com/givebackasmile/domestic_violence.aspx, About Domestic Violence, download
29/Mar/05.

16
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

Terror as a Stabilizing Factor

Finally, a brief reference to state terrorism and terror in the private sphere will be used
to emphasize that the systematic and continuous use (or threat) of violence against
innocent civilians has proven very useful in perpetuating political systems based on
extreme forms of oppression and exploitation. As opposed to the targeted terrorist
attacks of Islamist groups such as Al Qaida, Jamaa Islamia, Abu Sayyaf or Hamas,
which are intended to destabilize the existing social and political order, the
overwhelming majority of all terror exercised in the Middle East against women,
minorities, and political opponents is of eerily stabilizing nature. This chain of terror
permeates society from the bottom to the top. At the lowest level, the male head of the
family can keep his wife (or wives) and female servants under control by threatening
them with the use of physical and sexual violence. On the upper end of the societal
pyramid, authoritarian leaders and other members of the power elites use the constant
and oppressive presence of the mukhabarat (a comprehensive network of secret police
and security forces), the police, and the military, in order to keep political, ethnic, and
religious opposition movements at bay. In both the public and private sphere, reports of
occasional deaths and severe injuries serve as a constant reminder that terrorist threats
are not to be taken lightly.

4. Gender Mainstreaming International Terrorism

Having dealt with various alternative views of terror in the Middle East – i.e.
attitudinal, private, and stabilizing – allow us to now return to the traditionally narrow
view of terrorism, as an active and public form of system destabilization. Within the
confines of the generally accepted understanding of terror, as defined by the UN (i.e.
VI.B.4. §164 of "A more secure world"), we will distinguish between the experiences
and self-definitions to be found among both male and female terrorists. Very little is
known about the most "feminine" of all terrorist activities, i.e. the reproduction of male
terrorist capabilities. However, despite this lack of empirical data, common sense
would allow the attentive student of the field to state that without the clandestine
networks which provide for the development, sustainability, and expansion of political

17
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

violence, many of the spectacular attacks of the past few years would most likely have
been impossible.14

Journalistic research, anecdotal reports, and unrepresentative collections of interviews

seem to indicate that women have expanded their role within these terror networks.
Initially responsible for household and family reproductive labor in the service of male
terrorists, female activities now include providing messenger services, organizing
conspiratory financial and information networks, and the smuggling of people and
material through enemy checkpoints.15 Even less is know about possible leadership
roles now being filled by female terrorists.16 Recent publications in the field of gender
and terrorism allow us, however, to draw the following conclusions concerning the link
between gender and political violence.

Femininity and Terror

Politically active women in the Middle East must withstand far greater resistance and
overcome much greater hurdles than do women in Europe or North America. In many
cases they must deal with open rejection on the part of their families. They must
therefore weigh the odds of their actions and be much better informed about the goals
and ideology of any organization they might join, before they become politically active.
Thus, according to Talbot, the determination and focus typical of female terrorists in the
region should be understood as merely one facet of political activism to be found
among women in the Middle East, who, no matter where they are situated in the public

14 According to Enloe in Carol Cohn, A conversation with Cynthia Enloe: "Feminists look at masculinity and the men who wage
war," In: Signs, Summer 28 (2003), p. 1199, http:// uit.no/getfile.php?SiteId=52& PageId=1410& FileId=228.
15 "The willingness of fundamentalist terrorist organizations to use women despite the dilemma posed by religion and
tradition stems from their understanding of the tactical advantages conferred by their seemingly innocent outward appearance
and the universal perception of their non-violent character. These enable them more easily to bypass security measures and
personnel less suspicious of their intentions. These considerations must overcome the inhibitions grounded in the norms
regarding the status of women in the traditional societies in which they operate as well as concerns about possibly opening a
Pandora’s Box of demands by women for rights and freedoms currently denied them.“ See:
http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/tanotes/TAUnotes88.doc; No. 88, October 9, 2003; Yoram Schweitzer, Female Suicide Bombers for
God, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Published by Tel Aviv University, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African
Studies.
16 "The growing propensity to encourage women to adopt the role of fighters was sparked by the suicide bombing in Jerusalem,
as the bomber, Wafa Idris, is presented by both men and women in the Palestinian Authority as an ideal role-model, worthy of
imitation.“ Raviha Diyav, member of the administrative staff of the Palestinian Women Union emphasized that the
participation of Idris in the attack shows the determination and the resolve of the Palestinian woman to participate as full
partners in the national struggle, alongside her brothers…“ Al-Ayyam, February 1, 2002; "…Attaf Yussuf, a columnist in the
media supplement "The Women’s Voice", claims that "Palestinian women desire to participate alongside the men in all aspects
of the struggle." Al-Quds, March 1, 2002: http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict/Articles/Marcus-2002-03-12.asp;
Israel Science and Technology Homepage; By Itamar Marcus – March 12, 2002, Source: Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin.
Nach Rhiannon. Also see: http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/news/attack /310102_3.html, The North East,
The unexpected face of terrorism, Rhiannon Talbot, 31/01/2002.

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Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

sphere, are always traveling in "enemy territory."17 As opposed to men, who tend to
follow more general goals, such as liberty, resistance, or dignity, women are more
likely to respond to particular, practical events and causes, such as the killing, rape, or
arrest of a family member.18 Female suicide bombers tend to suffer from a
disproportionate level of experiences with traumatic events such as occupation, death of
an immediate relative, or severe social exclusion. They therefore appear to be more
vulnerable and seek an escape by resorting to violent action.19

Historically, female terrorists were almost exclusively recruited by leftist and

nationalist organizations in the Middle East. Although Islamist organizations have
traditionally used women on a regular basis for so called reproductive activities, i.e.
helping men be better prepared for action, they have more recently also given women
access to more dangerous fields of action, including working as clandestine messengers
and carrying out reconnaissance for terror attacks. This new role for women in Islamist
organizations seems to be the result of two interrelated factors: 1) women generally
enjoy higher sympathy levels, both in the West and in the Arab world and 2) until
recently, Arab and/or Muslim women aroused much less suspicion then did their male
counterparts and could thereby more easily pass through checkpoints undetected.20 The
female propensity towards acts of political violence can be attributed partially to the
abuse women experience at the hands of Islamist terrorist organizations, which hope to
thereby enhance the public value of their "propaganda of the deed." However,
experiments based on videogames, which place women outside of social control, have
illustrated that women, when given the opportunity, can –in their own right – be just as
ruthless and brutal as men. 21

According to Israeli journalists and terrorism experts, whose expertise can

hardly be considered objective considering their role in occupied Palestine, integrating
women into Islamist terror networks carries with it an inherent danger for the

17 See: http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/news/attack/310102_3.html, The North East, The unexpected face of

terrorism, Rhiannon Talbot, 31/01/2002.
18 See: http://www.headlinemuse.com/Culture/lethallamiae.htm; Lethal Lamiae: The Female Face of Terrorists; Linda Foubister,
copyright 2004 by Linda Foubister. All rights reserved. Issue #40.
19 See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1213_041213_tv_suicide_ bombers.html; Brian Handwerk, Female
Suicide Bombers: Dying to Kill, In: National Geographic Channel, December 13, 2004.
20 See: http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=537338.html, Alexis B. Delaney / Peter R. Neumann, The spectacular rise of the
female terrorist. Another failure of imagination?, In: IHT; Monday, September 06, 2004.
21 See: http://www.postwritersgroup.com/archives/good0921.htm; The Washington Post Writers Group, Ellen Goodman, Equal
Rights, Equal Wrongs, copyright 2004.

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Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

fundamentalist cause. The initial resistance to including women in fighting positions in

the struggle against occupation was based on a fear of the emancipatory effect this
direct participation might have, thus enabling women to not only fight Israeli injustice,
but also to combat gendered discrimination and exploitation. Many religious leaders
have therefore gone to great ends in order to reinterpret Muslim scripture in a way that
precludes female leadership roles in the resistance.22 Meir Litvak, of Tel Aviv
University, sees no danger of terrorism leading to women's emancipation in the Arab
world: "Those who send these women do not really care about women’s rights. They
are exploiting the personal frustrations and grievances of these women for their own
political gain, while they continue to limit the role of women in other aspects of life."23

Left to fend for themselves, many female terrorists have dealt with the
theological ambivalence inherent in their roles as militant activists in quite unique
ways. The following excerpt from an interview with an unsuccessful suicide bomber
illustrates to what lengths grassroots exegesis of Muslim scripture can go in order to
reconcile theory and praxis.
Manuela: According to the Koran, male martyrs are welcomed to paradise by 72
virgins; and women martyrs?
Ayat: A woman martyr will be the person in charge, the manager, the officer of the
72 virgins, the fairest of the fair.24

Masculinity and Terror

As opposed to female terrorists, men do not violate existing social norms when they
decide to engage in terrorist activities linked to socially sanctioned concepts of
emancipation and justice. Men often become terrorists "by accident," i.e. they get
involved in a group or movement, and are gradually sucked in. This is almost never the
case with women.25 Whereas women, when they finally do decide to become terrorists,
are practical and focused on specific goals, men are often motivated by "higher" causes.

22 See: http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/tanotes/TAUnotes88.doc; No. 88, October 9, 2003, Yoram Schweitzer, Female Suicide Bombers
for God, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Published by Tel Aviv University, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and
African Studies.
23 See: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/07/24/2003060723; Taipei Times; The rise of the female terrorist;
By Giles Foden, The Guardian, London, Thursday, Jul 24, 2003, p. 9.
24 See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1407356,00.html, Women on the edge of destruction, Housed in a prison in
the heart of Israel are the female suicide bombers who didn’t complete their deadly missions. Manuela Dviri hears their stories,
Monday February 7, 2005, The Guardian.
25 See: http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/news/attack/310102_3.html, The North East, The unexpected face of
terrorism, Rhiannon Talbot, 31/01/2002.

20
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

Young men in the Middle East often – rightly or wrongly – blame Israeli and American
foreign policy for their humiliating positions and the lack of potential upward mobility
options in their respective societies. The military occupation of their homeland, the
assumed lack of respect for Islam in the West, and the undermining of their male
dignity through rapid economic change and social dislocation are often collapsed. The
use of political violence allows young men to reestablish their own masculinity, to
demand respect for their religion, their people, and homeland. This "remasculinization"
of Arab and/or Muslim society is aimed at both the West, which has purportedly
attempted to globalize the Middle East in order to undermine its ideals, as well as at the
corrupt and authoritarian local power elites, who have been feminized through their
submission to the United States and Israel.26

Many Islamist terrorists perceive the globalized economy as being part and
parcel of an international conspiracy aimed at the honor of their wives and daughters
and the dignity of all Muslim men. According to this scenario, US and Israeli
occupation policies, the various international peacekeeping forces, Western NGOs and
educational institutions, the global commercial media, and especially the foreign policy
of George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, are all integral components of one
comprehensive network of oppression. The fact that the US army allowed Western
female soldiers to torture and sexually humiliate Arab men would tend to substantiate
this position. Accordingly, terrorist actions, even when they cause collateral damage
amongst civilians, are justified as one of many possible forms of resistance aimed at
reestablishing Arab dignity in the Middle East.27

Attempts have been made to cast male willingness to engage in terrorism as a

form of compensation. As portrayed by Kimmel, this seems to hold true especially in
the case of one of the 19 World Trade Center bombers, Mohammad Atta, who might
have attempted to establish his masculine role through acts of political violence.
All of these issues converged in the life of Mohammed Atta, the terrorist about whom
the most has been written and conjectured. Currently, for example, there is much
speculation about Atta's sexuality. Was he gay? Was he a repressed homosexual, too
ashamed of his sexuality to come out? Such innuendoes are based on no more than a

26 See: http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i22/22b01101.htm; The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 8, 2002; Gender, Class,
and Terrorism; Michael Kimmel.
27 See: http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/publication.cfm?ctype=article&item_id=976; Stern, Jessica, Holy Avengers In: Financial
Times, Weekend Magazine (12 June 2004).

21
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

few circumstantial tidbits about his life. He was slim, sweet-faced, neat, meticulous, a
snazzy dresser. The youngest child of an ambitious lawyer father and a pampering
mother, Atta grew up shy and polite, a mama's boy. "He was so gentle," his father said.
"I used to tell him, 'Toughen up, boy!'" 28

According to Eisenstein, the Western military presence in the Middle East has
also played the gender game with its Arab/Muslim opponents. By using
young/white/Christian/female soldiers when torturing and sexually humiliating
elderly/brown/Muslim/men, the US interrogators were intentionally confusing their
enemies. In this respect Western women are also partially responsible for producing the
violent responses now prevalent in the Middle East.
These women should be held responsible and accountable; but they also are gender
decoys. As decoys they create confusion by participating in the very sexual humiliation
that their gender is usually victim to. This gender swapping and switching leaves
masculinist/racialized gender in place. Just the sex has changed; the uniform remains
the same. Male or female can be a masculinized commander, or imperial collaborator
while white women look like masculinist empire builders and brown men look like
women and homos. Whenever power and domination are exposed in their ugly form
like at Abu Ghraib the embedded sexual and racialized meanings of power are revealed.
Racism and sexism are always in play together because they each construct the other.
When one is revealed the other is laying in wait. 29

Ultimately, the American and European support for the oppressive regimes in
the Middle East has led a dual humiliation of Arab and Muslim men, as portrayed by
Cynthia Enloe. The very mukhabarat which oppresses them is being courted and
partially financed by the West, at the same time that North American and European
governments and NGOs propagate democracy and human rights in the region.
Furthermore, the track record of the US, European, Australian, and Israeli occupation
forces in the Arab world falls far short of the high ideals and standards that these
countries apply to their own populations at home. This combination of oppression and
hypocrisy leads to desperation, culminating in anger and ultimately; finally resulting in
a willingness to resort to terror.30

28 See: http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i22/22b01101.htm; The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 8, 2002; Gender, Class,
and Terrorism; Michael Kimmel.
29 See: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=12&ItemID=5751; ZNet, Zillah Eisenstein, Gender, Sexual
Humiliation. Gender Confusion and the Horrors at Abu Ghraib, June 22, 2004.
30 Carol Cohn, A conversation, p. 1204.

22
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

Final Comments

Terror permeates life in the Middle East. In order to cope with it on a daily basis, the
people of the region have developed strategies similar to those of an abused wife who is
constantly being threatened and continuously developing counter-methods of avoiding
violence. Over the last half century, the Western democracies, along with the Soviet
Union and more recently Russia, have proven that they prefer stability in the region to
democratic change, the results of which they can not control. In the words of the
American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, for 60 years the US pursued stability at
the expense of democracy in the Middle East and achieved neither. The Western
approach to the Middle East, as hypocritical as it is shortsighted, has only encouraged
the oppressive regional regimes and hardened their determination to continue
terrorizing their respective populations.

As is the case in the entire Middle East, the political system in Lebanon is both
politically undemocratic and socially unjust, although respect for human rights is
somewhat more developed here than in neighboring countries of the region. Experience
with over two decades of Israeli and Syrian occupation have convinced the population
that all means of resistance, including the use of violence – deemed "terrorism" by the
occupation – are justified in the struggle to liberate their country. The so-called Cedar
Revolution of 2005 and the largely peaceful nature of the current conflict between a
pro-Western majority government and an anti-Western opposition have demonstrated to
the world that the Lebanese can muster the political will to resolve their political
differences without resorting to violence. The lessons of a 15 year long Civil War
during the 1970s and 1980s seem to have convinced the majority population that
peaceful conflict resolution is the only acceptable option and that in a renewed civil war
all sides would be losers. 31

In conclusion, I wish to offer a personal experience which represents a mere

pebble in the mosaic of history and the learning process that goes with it. At the age of
eighteen, in the midst of the Civil War, my Lebanese wife – who is today a university

31 This was empirically substantiated recently by Theodor Hanf in: E pluribus unum?: Lebanese opinions and attitudes on
coexistence, Byblos Letters, International Centre for Human Sciences (CISH), Byblos, 2007, pp. :"The findings of 2006, and of
2002 before that, show that the great majority have learnt from the war. More that four in five respondents agree that everybody loses
when the communities fight against one another."

23
Race: Arab, Sex: Terrorist

professor and director of a prestigious research center in Beirut – decided to become a

suicide bomber in order to do her part in liberating Beirut from Israeli occupation. She
had taken as role models those female Lebanese "terrorists" who – shortly after the
occupation of Lebanon north of the Litani River, had sacrificed their lives in order to
kill as many Israelis as possible.

"I always thought that I as a girl should be able to do the things my two younger
brothers did with my dad. If he went hunting with them, I went along, if my smaller
brother could carry a rifle, I could too. So when I saw all the pain the Israelis were
inflicting on my country, I saw being a suicide bomber as the only possible way to
do something, especially because our government and our army refused to take
action."

Obviously, she never got around to carrying out her youthful patriotic intentions.
However, twenty years later, my wife recently published an article on a website run by
Palestinians and Israelis in which she provides a Muslim-feminist repudiation of
religiously motivated terror – including suicide bombings – in Palestine and Iraq.32 In
the Middle East, terror has many faces. A concerted effort aimed at cracking the
definition monopoly controlling the terms "terror" and "terrorism" could help to lift the
veil on all of them.

32 See: http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000188.htm; Islam and the Concept of Martyrdom, GenderLink Diversity

Centre; Salzburg – Beirut – Bolzano/Bozen, Occasional Papers No. 14 – November 2003, <www.libanlink.org>.

24