It’s very hard to imagine the motivation of a suicide bomber. I don’t think many of us can understand what drives someone to commit such an act. This thoughtful, detailed and insightful book makes an attempt to explain the inexplicable. It’s a thorough and detailed exploration of suicide terrorism, focusing primarily on Palestine, but with obvious resonance to other areas of the world. In 2017 nearly 6,000 people were killed in suicide attacks across the world and the more we can understand these attacks the easier, perhaps, it will be to counter them. It’s not an easy read, both intellectually and emotionally, but I found it illuminating and enlightening and feel that it has deepened my understanding of this almost incomprehensible issue. I’m not knowledgeable enough to judge whether the author’s conclusions and insights are correct or not, but I certainly found this a fascinating and thought-provoking book.

Although I have been reading on death's political meaning in general and suicide bombing in particular over two years now, this is my first book on the Palestinian conflict which, as the author also reminds readers in his concluding remarks, the most prolific area of "case study" that they work on, maybe disproportionately. This is probably because you can interview Palestinians and Israelis without the imminent threat of getting killed, at least the danger is not as great as it is in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan where most of the suicide bombing globally takes place.

The main strength of the book in my opinion is interviews with ZAKA volunteers, ultra-Orthodox Israelis who arrive at the scene of the bombing and "sort out" the remains of the victims and the bomber. As the author admits, the Palestinian accounts are much more limited, not only the propoaganda machine starts whirring after a suicide bombing occurs (and it does), but quite probably ordinary Palestinians did not want to talk to an Israeli on this issue. As a result, the Palestinian accounts are limited to high officials and Palestinian "engineers" of suicide bombing most of whom have legendary status in the Occupied Territories.

I would have liked to hear more from the author from the side of philosophy on the undecidability of the "victim" status in suicide bombing (is suicide bomber also a victim?) and the mingling of body parts in the aftermath of the attack (admittedly, Aran discusses the issue at some length, albeit in a speculative tone). Of course, sacrifice also plays a role ("qorban" originates from "qor-", being close) and much remains to be talked about and written on the Sunni tradition of sacrifice (sacrifice in Islam is usually thought alongside the Shia tradition).