Thursday, July 10, 2003
Palestinian TV Urges Young Men to Become Martyrs -- 07/09/2003
These clips are gone, said Carmon, but another video, which he calls just as troubling, is still being shown.
In it, a Palestinian youth sees his girlfriend get killed by Israeli soldiers and then decides to seek revenge. He is enticed to become a martyr by pictures of beautiful women with long flowing hair dressed in white gowns frolicking and dancing in pools of water in a garden - the Islamic dream of paradise.
Palestinians consider those who die in confrontations with Israeli troops or those who carry out terror attacks to be martyrs. Suicide bombers particularly are promised that 72 virgins await them in paradise.
The video clip is simple. But in a society where it is taboo for young men to be close to the opposite sex, this is very enticing, said Carmon
"This is a video clip in which a youth can see with his own eyes [what] the 72...virgins promised to a shaheed [martyr] look like," he said. "This is incitement to the suicide bomber."[...]