Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Israel-Palestine

BBC: Boy bomber speaks about mission

2004-07-16

via BBC - EFL
By Paul Wood - Friday, 16 July, 2004, 04:46 GMT 05:46 UK
A Palestinian boy arrested with a bomb strapped to his chest has told the BBC he volunteered to become a suicide bomber to avoid going to school.

Hussam Abdo, who was 15 at the time, said his parents would not have allowed him to leave the house if they knew what he was going to do. He was stopped by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in the West Bank. They forced him to cut off his belt, which contained nearly 9kg of explosives and nails.
...more...

The bottom was reached long ago... but they've never stopped digging.

Posted by:.com

#15 Ex-lib,

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs has a couple of very good summaries on the history of the Palestinians, the Arab-Israel conflict, etc. Just for background, he is not Jewish, and apparently didn't even pay attention to that part of the world until he saw the Palestinians dancing on his TV screen, celebrating 9/11. Scroll down the left side of the page to the heading "never forget", then click and read to your heart's content.

I could tell you what I know, but then my father still holds his Israeli citizenship from his stint in Haganah in 1948, when his mother used to kaffee klatch with Golda Meir, so perhaps there are some who might assume me to be biased.

Posted by: trailing wife 2004-07-16 11:35:10 PM

#14 Lol! Hmmmmm. Make you a deal: As soon as you promise not to post more than 15 articles / day, I'll be happy to! You don't leave anything for the rest of us, lol!

As for Fred's bandwidth, if you go gaga on images (note my embedded pix be wery wery small nowadays!) - then you're beholdin' to the tip jar! Linked images don't hit RB, so they can be as big as you want, but embeds do. You'll have to pay for your fetishes like the rest of us, lol!

Of course, posting it on RB tells the Bad Guyz, trolls, and dipshits, too. We can exchange email addy's through Fred@rantburg.com, if you want to do this - I'll send him one so he knows it's cool. 8^)

Posted by: .com 2004-07-16 9:11:39 PM

#13 Ex-lib, only one I can answer there - and maybe it's not quite what you're looking for, but it's all I've got - is that since Arafat popped up, there have been a couple of massacres of the native Christians - Darfor (sp?) was, I believe, one of the nastier ones. They still exist, but methinks they're a little quieter these days. Although I did once meet a Palestinian Christian woman who still blamed Israel for all her problems . . .

Posted by: The Doctor 2004-07-16 9:00:26 PM

#12 .com, When you get a chance if you could list the procedure for posting photos in here. I still have yet to figure it out -- Thanks in advance

Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-07-16 8:47:28 PM

#11 Sane posters, only, please respond (especially anyone who lives over there and is familiar with the politics, sans American/Euro "journalism":

Are we dealing with an agrarian-based population that was displaced--taken away from the only way of life they knew by the immigrants? Is that why the Paleos are so poor, compared with the Israelis? Are they victims of Arab politics and power trading? Or is there another reason? How were they doing before the Jews returned? Was the population, then, equally poor, so the discrepancy was not as great as it is now (i.e. between underdeveloped/ Moslems and modern/Jews)? What about the native Christian population before and after? Thanks.

"Dumbass, brainwashed or both?" From the look of him, Raj, I'd say both.

Posted by: ex-lib 2004-07-16 3:31:17 PM

#10 He volunteered to become a suicide bomber to avoid going to school.

Dumbass, brainwashed or both? Just hike school like I used to do and forge a note the next day, signed by 'Juan Epstein's Mother'. Works every time!

Posted by: Raj 2004-07-16 12:42:59 PM

#9 He's 15?
Hell I know his problem.
He's short, ugly and Arab.

Posted by: Shipman 2004-07-16 12:40:17 PM

#8 Seems he thought being made fun of while doing a strip tease on world wide TV was even better than martyrdom. I guess martyrdom is overrated.

Posted by: ed 2004-07-16 12:26:36 PM

#7 "... "It's not suicide, it's martyrdom. I would become a martyr and go to my God. It's better than being a singer or a footballer. It's better than anything."

Yet he decided not to try and carry out his mission anyways - by either setting the damn thing off anywhere he could, or making a grab for it, which would have ended up with the troops opening fire. Either way, he seems to have decided that he could put off his quality time with the virgins for a little while yet.
Somehow, I think they're having a much harder time getting volunteers any more.

Mike

Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-07-16 12:20:41 PM

#6 He volunteered to become a suicide bomber to avoid going to school.

Wow-what a reason to die, and kill others, too.

Posted by: jules 187 2004-07-16 11:48:48 AM

#5 ...he volunteered to become a suicide bomber to avoid going to school

What ever happened to the days when kids would just hold a thermometer up to a light bulb until it read 101 degrees, and then say, "I'm sick, mom. Can I stay home today?"

Posted by: Dripping Sarcasm 2004-07-16 11:36:33 AM

#4 Many Palestinians however, say that suicide bombers are a symptom of the despair and desperation felt by the whole community.

Despair and desperation at what? The fact that the Jews are next door and won't allow themselves to be pushed out?

Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-07-16 11:34:50 AM

#3 They forced him to cut off his belt, which contained nearly 9kg of explosives and nails.

Even while reporting a Palestinian terrorist outrage, the BBC finds a space to use language that makes Israel seem like the bad guys. Any 'normal' reporter would have said, "His belt, once removed contained..."

Posted by: mhw 2004-07-16 10:07:26 AM

#2 his parents would not have allowed him to leave the house if they knew what he was going to do

Progress of a sort, methinks.

Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-07-16 9:59:29 AM

#1 Israel accuses the Palestinians from Yasser Arafat on down of creating a cult of death.

Many Palestinians however, say that suicide bombers are a symptom of the despair and desperation felt by the whole community.

Whatever the truth, there is no shortage of other teenagers in the occupied territories who wish to take the mission that Hussam Abdo failed to complete.

I didn't read one iota about this kid feeling despair or desparation. What this kid had to say only underscores the Israeli "death cult" position:

He added: "It's not suicide, it's martyrdom. I would become a martyr and go to my God. It's better than being a singer or a footballer. It's better than anything."

Posted by: PlanetDan 2004-07-16 7:44:41 AM

00:00