Title: Grandmother in first Hamas suicide attack in two years.

Date: 25^th November 06

Sources: Channelnewasia

1. The mother of nine and grandmother of 41 became the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber at the age of 57, selecting as her target troops operating near her northern Gaza home in Jabaliya, seeking to curb near-daily rocket attacks on Israel.

2. The operation came two weeks after the radical faction threatened to resume suicide bombings in response to a botched Israeli shelling in the Gaza town of Beit Hanun that killed 19 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

3. Najar was shown in a clip from a pre-taped video message aired on mainstream television stations, wearing a Hamas bandana in addition to a white veil and carrying a heavy kalashnikov, fighter-style in her arms.

4. "I am the martyr Fatima Najar from the town of Jabaliya. I work for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and I sacrifice myself for God, the nation, the Al-Aqsa (mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest Muslim site)," she said.

5. Relatives said Najar left behind seven sons and two daughters, plus some 41 grandchildren, but insisted they were proud of her "martyrdom," which daughter Azhar said was a direct response to the Beit Hanun shelling.

6. "She did this operation in response to the Beit Hanun massacre. She was very moved by what happened," said Azhar, speaking from the family home in Jabaliya where relatives came to congratulate Najar's nearest and dearest.

7. Azhar also said her mother had taken part in a daring rescue operation, staged by Palestinian mothers and wives, who acted as human shields to free more than a dozen gunmen holed up in a Beit Hanun mosque on November 3.

8. "We are really happy. It's a big operation. She told us last night that she would do a suicide operation... We are proud," said Zuheir, Najar's 20-year-old son. "'I don't want anything, only to die a martyr.' That's what she said."

9. Najar was the second Palestinian woman to blow herself up in the northern Gaza this month, following a November 6 attack claimed by Islamic Jihad.

Suicide is not just an individualistic act.

According to Durkheim, social forces existing outside of the individual shaped the likelihood that a person would commit suicide. Suicides rates were therefore social facts. He demonstrated this by showing how suicides rates varied from one group to another from one social situation to another. Some of the main variations that he identified were as follows:

• Religion. Protestants were more likely to commit suicide than Catholics within the country and from country to country.
• Family relationships. Those people who are married were more unlikely to commit suicide compare to single, windowed or divorced. The suicide rate for married women was lower than that for single women only if they had children.
• War and peace. The suicide rate dropped in time of war, not only in victorious but also in defeated countries. Thus, Germany defeated in France in war of 1870 but the suicide rate fell in both countries.
• Economic crisis. Suicide rated rose at times of economics crisis. The increasing poverty would send up the suicide rate but however when economies boomed, suicide rates also rose therefore it’s concluded that the sudden changes in them that caused suicide rates to rise.

Social solidarity and the four types of suicide.

Therefore suicide cannot be explained solely in terms for the psychology of the individual. Durkheim’s theory of suicide was based on the idea that it was the degree of social solidarity that explained the variations in suicide rates. He distinguished between two aspects of social connection, which he called integration and regulations. Integration refers to the strength of the individual’s attachment to social groups. Regulation refers to the control of individual desires and aspirations by group norms or rules of behavior. This led him to identify four types of suicide.

1. egoistic suicide

· Resulted from weak integration of the individual that we have shown he described as ‘egoism’. The higher suicide rate of Protestants is one example of it. Protestantism is a less integrative religion than Catholicism, for it places less emphasis on collective rituals and emphasizes the individual’s direct relationship with God.

2. anomic suicide

· Resulted from the lack of regulation that Durkheim described as anomie. Durkheim believed that people would be content if their needs and passions were regulates and controlled, for this would keep their desires and their circumstances in balance with each other. For examples changes brought by economics change or divorce might upset the normal regulation of a person’s life breaks down.

3. altruistic suicide

· It’s the opposition of egoistic suicide. Social bonds are too strong, as the people set litlle value on themselves as individuals, or they obediently sacrifice themselves to the requirements of the group.

4. fatalistic suicide

· It’s the opposition of altruistic suicide. Regulations were excessively high to oppress the individual.

Causally explanation and functional analysis

Durkheim recognized that egoism and anomie were often found together. For example, a divorce occurred, this both isolated people and left their lives in an unregulated and without much integration unstable social solidarity state from close companionship.

Mental states and feelings of individuals

By this, he demonstrated not only that the behavior, feelings and mental states of the individual was social. Thus Durkheim argues that the social isolation characteristic of egoistic suicide results in apathy or depression. Anomic suicide is associated with a much more restless condition of irritation, disappointment, or frustration. When alack of regulations leads and ambition to get out of control, people become upset and frustrated by their inability to achieve them. Altruistic suicide is generally accompanied by an energy and passion quite opposite to the apathy of egoism. Durkheim did not discuss the psychological state characteristic fatalistic suicide but it would seem to involve a mood of acceptance and resignation.

The evaluation of the Hamas suicide attack

According to Durkheim, Mdm Najar is very unlikely to commit an egoistic, anomic suicide and fatalistic suicide as she’s a Muslim and had many children stated in (4) and (5) respectively in the newspaper article, Islam is a religion that place strongly on collective rituals such as having mass prayer in the mosques, doing 5 times prayer daily facing Jerusalem. In (3) she was in shown in clip for her willingness to die for her faith and her people. She must have considered the consequence for her death very carefully leaving his behind seven sons and two daughters, plus some 41 grandchildren despite the responsibilities and regulations that she need to bore for her family.

Then we can say that, she’s more likely to commit an altruistic suicide. In (4) she proclaimed that she’s was a martyr of Islam. In this context, she was fulfilling Jihad (meaning to strive or struggle in the way of God) Accordingly to Javed Ahmad Ghamidi (a Islamic scholar), he divides Jihad as a warfare in two parts

1. Against injustice and oppression.
2. Against the rejecters of truth in Islam after it has become evident to them.

Very evidently, in (6) and (7) of the newspaper articles, her decision to be a suicide bomber was moved by the Beit Hanun massacre. This energy and passion become a motivation for her willingness to sacrifice herself for social group to be freed from injustice and oppression according to her faith in Islam which in turn earned her “martyrdom”. In my conclusion, according to Durkheim, Suicide is not just an mere individualistic act and it’s internal world of feelings and mental states can be socially produced.