Publications

In January 2002, Wafa Idris, a young Palestinian woman from the al-Amri refugee camp adjacent to Ramallah, blew herself up on a crowded Jerusalem street. The Israel Defense Forces, Israeli public opinion, and many in the West were taken by surprise, if not outright astounded. Conversely, the Arab press, and to a greater degree the Islamic press, reacted with elated jubilation. “It’s a woman!” cheered al-Sha’ab, an Islamic Egyptian newspaper, in a headline that played on an “It’s a boy!” greeting card announcement for the felicitous birth of a son. Al-Ahram, a leading Egyptian establishment newspaper, saw in Wafa with her dreamy eyes and the mysterious smile on her lips the likeness of Mona Lisa. Some Islamic voices indeed took exception to the novelty, such as Sheikh Tantawi of al-Azhar in Cairo, or Hamas’s Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who faulted a woman leaving home improperly clad and unaccompanied by a male family member for breaching the boundaries of modesty. Ultimately, however, both relented and gave approval to such otherwise immoral conduct if the goal is as sublime as martyrdom.