Cult of Destruction

Alan Derschowitz hammers home the problem. There are Islamists who simply worship death. They can't get enough of it and are more than eager and willing to watch their children become suicide bombers.

Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber.

At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: "if you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you."

Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle -- even a just battle -- has been a constant and powerful image.

Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women -- some married with infant children -- are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life.

I've been watching the situation with the Palestinians for years and have seen that they have no problem giving birth to children with the intent and purpose of watching them turn into suicide bombers. It's the message plastered all over Islamist websites and while some of it is clearly propaganda, enough Muslim women actually believe that there is no problem having children who grow up with the intention of becoming suicide bombers and a blob of pink mist.

That more women are apparently strapping the bombs on themselves is a two-fold development. Part of it has to do with the fact that the US and Western efforts to interdict and kill jihadis has been extremely successful so that the jihadis have to look at women and children for suitable suicide bombers because they're less likely to draw attention of security forces. The other part has to do with the way women are treated by Islamists generally, which is as second class citizens, and many will be forced to become suicide bombers by relatives who believe they've been shamed by the acts of those women.

However, enough women seemingly have no problem becoming incubators for suicide bombers because they've been so thoroughly indoctrinated for years by hateful mullahs who preach unending hatred and jihad against infidels.