Rating: 
Summary: A Mixed Bag
Review: Although the author has conducted some valuable interviews, she appears to be entirely ignorant of the local language--Arabic--and the culture and tenets of Islam. To give just two examples, her transcription of a simple and common Arabic phrase, "God is Great," is "Allahu Akhbar," (which, if it means anything, means something like "God is best informed"), instead of the simpler "Allahu Akbar." No exotic gutteral sounds, not very tough to write down. But--like authors who transcribe "jihad" as "ji'had" in order to make it seem even more foreign and troubling than it is--Victor chooses consistently and in the smallest details to make Palestinians and Muslims appear as different from "us" as possible.
A more troubling and stupid error occurs on p. 184, where she writes that the "five pillars of Islam" are "martyrdom, the declaration of faith. . .charity,. . .fasting for the month of Ramadan,. . . the pilgrimage to Mecca, and. . .ritual prayer." Even if Victor can't count, the reader should be able to enumerate six items here, the first of which, "martyrdom," is decidedly NOT one of the pillars of Islam. Aside from demonstrating the author's basic ignorance--and possibly simply her bad faith--it demonstrates that the book is poorly edited.
Again, many of the interviews are interesting and useful. But the author has a big ax to grind, and both her facts and interpretations need to be treated with caution.
Rating: 
Summary: A Poor Effort: Shallow, Sexist, Orientalist
Review: Barbara Victor's work as a journalist has taken her through the Middle East since the early Eighties. The backdrop of her experiences there forms the seed of this book (sensationally titled Les Femmes Kamikazes in its European printing). Victor also directed an accompanying documentary film-also called Les Femmes Kamikazes-that parallels her book. The bases of her research are interviews conducted with the families of four shahidas, the Arabic word for female suicide bombers. She also interviews a host of Israeli "terrorism experts", (a problematic tactic, as their expertise exclusively supports Zionist ideology) as well as journalists, members of the Israeli secret police and psychologists on both sides of the Green Line. Prefaced with a foreword by Christopher Dickey, Newsweek's Paris bureau chief and Middle East editor, the 20 short chapters of her book tell the stories of the shahidas, and other women who have taken an active role in the uprising.
A novelist and non-fiction author, Barbara Victor has made women her topic in the past, with subjects as diverse as Madonna and Hanan Asrawi. It is hard not see that the extremes represented by those subjects haunt this work-perhaps not the benefit of her argument. For example Victor's preoccupation with the physical appearance of her subjects has an odd relationship with the feminist principles that her book purports to espouse. Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber in history is described as having "perfect makeup" and "beautifully manicured nails" to match the "smart, western-style coat" she wore on her final trip to the mall. Victor reports that, according to the sales clerk who survived the blast, Idris was trying to free her knapsack from the doorway of a store while watching herself reapply makeup in a compact when it suddenly exploded. Darine Aisha, the second shahida in history is described as having had "a captivating smile" while Ayat Al-Akhras-the third-wore makeup and "smart, western clothes." Victor uses the language of western fashion and style to suggest something of the interior lives of the women she profiles, a rhetorically dubious and politically retrograde tactic. There may indeed be something worth exploring in the ways these women choose to present themselves but Victor isn't interested in the larger implications of these choices. For example "Zina" (a pseudonym) wore a halter-top and tight pants to aid a male suicide bomber in completing his mission and initially eluded capture by miming an exaggerated cell phone conversation to convince patrolling Israeli soldiers she was an American tourist. This suggests that rather than an unconscious longing for western freedoms represented by makeup and clothing that Palestinian women are acutely aware of the way that western styles render them invisible, often as a precursor to the final disappearance of their martyrdom.
Victor refuses to acknowledge the political agency of their choices, portraying the shahidas instead as young women with "personal problems" who were exploited by male relatives into sacrificing themselves. Victor cites the now-familiar boogeyman of fundamentalist Islam as the prime motivator in this phenomenon. Ironically this narrative often runs counter to the testimony that she collects from the surviving families and friends of the martyred women. Wafa Idris' mother, Mabrook contends that her daughter was motivated "more by nationalistic fervor than religion." Indeed Idris was known for having an "independent mind and a profound feeling of resentment toward the occupation." In another example, Darine Aisha, a "brilliant" student of English literature at Al-Najah University, became a shahida after being sexually humiliated by Israeli border guards. The guards taunted her, tore off her headscarf and forced her to kiss and embrace her male cousin in front of a crowd of Palestinians waiting to cross into Israel. She tried to defend herself but acquiesced so that the guards would allow a nearby woman with a dying infant in need of medical attention to pass. A deeply religious woman she was also, according to her friends "a feminist in the true sense of the word", once having won an essay contest by writing "I am a Muslim woman who believes her body belongs to her alone, which means how I look should not play a role in who I am or what response I evoke from people who meet me. Wearing the hijab gives me freedom, because my physical appearance is not an issue." This statement shouldn't be interpreted as a universal defense of the veil but rather proof that the woman who wore it knew what she was doing with her life...and her death.
Victor positions the testimony of the Palestinians who knew the shahidas against the assertions of Israeli "experts" who consistently blame "fanatical" religious practices and the second class status of women in Palestinian society for their actions as opposed to the host of issues raised by living under Israeli occupation. For example, Mira Tzoreff, an Israeli academic says "(Palestinians) are living in a not very democratic surrounding...This is a reactive national culture, a collective atmosphere. We are talking about post-modern versus nationalistic, and that makes all the difference. People cannot stand alone or think for themselves...they must have a national explanation, and that is to see Israel and the United States as the ultimate enemy...." Statements like this one reveal the Orientalist character that mars Army of Roses as a work of serious scholarship, although it provides a revealing (if unintended) view of the misapprehensions underlying this conflict. The Israeli academic describes the Intifada as the longing for a "national explanation," while the Palestinians themselves describe it as the longing for a nation.
Again and again throughout her book the Palestinians point to the Israeli occupation as the main motivator in the phenomenon of suicide bombing (by either sex) and Victor continually returns to her original thesis: that Palestinian society uses fundamentalist Islam to shame troubled girls into killing themselves. In her introduction Victor recalls touring the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut in 1982 after the Lebanese Christian Militia and Israeli army massacred thousands of Palestinian occupants. She encountered a woman there who was the sole survivor of her family. The woman answered her questions "in surprisingly good English" telling her "You American women talk constantly of equality. Well, you can take a lesson from us Palestinian women. We die in equal numbers to the men." Perhaps if she had heard her differently Barbara Victor would have written another sort of book.
Rating: 
Summary: An Amazing Book
Review: Even if you know a lot about the Middle East, this is an amazing book. It's especially disturbing in view of the recent suicide bombing in Israel by a young Palestinian college student, and I was only a few pages in when I couldn't put it down. The author does something you'd think is impossible. She made me understand the strange and sad logic behind suicide bombers, and particularly what would lead women into such acts.
Maybe because the author is an American who lives in Europe, she has a special angle on this story, but it's certainly not one we're reading about or hearing much about from our own media. I agree with the professional reviewers quoted here. Anyone who starts this book will go straight through to the end, probably experiencing, as I did, something of what the author went through -- going from sympathy to despair to a prayer that things in the Mideast will change, and quickly.
Rating: 
Summary: Valuable insight
Review: One issue that some reviewers here have pointed out is that supposedly misery and oppression lead to suicide bombings. As the author points, that can be one ingredient. However, a few facts seem to undercut the "oppression" argument.1. Some suicide bombers are not oppressed at all. The Saudi participants in the 911 attacks were actually quite wealthy in some cases with quite comfortable lives available as an option. There are many conflicts far worse that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in terms of human misery that do NOT produce even one suicide bomber, due to lack of cultural/state "infrastructure". 2. It requires more than just a motivated potential bomber. It requires an organizational infrastructure, recruitment, funding, training, cultural sanction and other elements. The Palestinian suicide bombing campaign has more in common with the WW2 Japanese Kamikazi campaign (which also had recruitment, infrastructure, cultural sanction and state support) than just the simple "repression" argument. In that sense especially, Victor is quite correct that this IS a Palestinian societal and govermental effort and that these unfortunate women are being used as cannon fodder.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable insight
Review: One issue that some reviewers here have pointed out is that supposedly misery and oppression lead to suicide bombings. As the author points, that can be one ingredient. However, a few facts seem to undercut the "oppression" argument. 1. Some suicide bombers are not oppressed at all. The Saudi participants in the 911 attacks were actually quite wealthy in some cases with quite comfortable lives available as an option. There are many conflicts far worse that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in terms of human misery that do NOT produce even one suicide bomber, due to lack of cultural/state "infrastructure". 2. It requires more than just a motivated potential bomber. It requires an organizational infrastructure, recruitment, funding, training, cultural sanction and other elements. The Palestinian suicide bombing campaign has more in common with the WW2 Japanese Kamikazi campaign (which also had recruitment, infrastructure, cultural sanction and state support) than just the simple "repression" argument. In that sense especially, Victor is quite correct that this IS a Palestinian societal and govermental effort and that these unfortunate women are being used as cannon fodder.
Rating:
Summary: Polarizing topic
Review: Quite interesting how people who already have an axe to grind against everybody's favourite whipping boy - Israel - hate the book. The fact is that Palestinians of every age are constantly bombarded by anti-Semitic hate propaganda in every single media - TV, books, newspapers and videos - 24-7. This has been demonstrated time and time again and is irrefutable. To deny it or ignore it is the height of either ignorance or stupidity - you choose. It's no wonder that women as well as men and boys choose to kill themselves. They are glorified and encouraged to murder the so-called 'descendants of pigs and apes' by Palestinian political and religious leaders. All day - everyday. It's like Nazi Germany only much, much worse. (Hitler didn't have TV and music videos at his disposal.) A reviewer from BC wrote, "....her simplistic analysis of 'what makes a suicide bomber' and her conspicuous silence on the overwhelming role of the barbaric Israeli occupation." This statement only illustrates how incredibly uninformed the reviewer is, and by extension how worthless her opinion of the book actually is. She probably has not a single clue as to how and why Israel actually came into posession of any of its territories in the first place. As for Israel's 'overwhelming role', well, the reviewer must be privy to some information that the rest of the world lacks. Either that, or she's just a typical, uninformed dingbat. Having said that, there are probably as many individual reasons for suicide bombers as there are suicide bombers. It's not reasonable to believe that the author has found 'THE REASON' for the recent phenomenon of female Palestinians shredding themselves. However, to many readers, it isn't good enough unless somehow the evil Jews can be blamed. BTW - Tamil females were doing it before the Palestinians latched onto the idea. Arafat and his cronies have made the horrific crimes of suicide and murder seem like something other than what it truly is : a barbaric act perpetrated by a society which has been brain-washed into losing its collective sense of right vs wrong. Although it's hard to blame Sharon for that, I'm sure many will try nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: An unforgettable and enlightening account
Review: Recently a new aspect of the Palestinian struggle has become apparent, the use of young women as suicide bombers. This author wanted to understand what would make a women commit such an act. The author uses thee stories of five women who became suicide bombers to illustrate the reasons behind female suicide bomb and suicide bombing in general. What drives someone to martyrdom is one of the essential questions. The second question the author examines is what drives women, who are oppressed and promised little for their deeds, to become suicide bombers. Religious Imams have promised Muslim men who become suicide bombers that they will receive 30 to 100 virgins in heaven for their deeds. Well Palestinian women aren't promised 100 virgin men(one doubts they would want 100 virgin men) and there is little religious reward for their suicide. So what drives them? The author draws the conclusion that it is a myriad of small issues and events that drive the women to death. The author contends the main reason is the poverty and hopelessness these women feel about their lives. This excellent book also shows definitely that these young women are 'recruited' and almost brainwashed into these horrendous acts. Many of the women are groomed from youth to hate and live for suicide. It is a terrible commentary and the author is critical of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa leaders who use the youth of Palestine as suicide bombers when many of these leaders live comfortable lives, sending young women to their deaths. The author also explores the women who have tried and failed to commit suicide. She shows the sad and awful lives the women are faced with. Pressed into killing themselves by men who aren't willing to die they are then sent to prison and their houses sometimes demolished. A frightening account of what drives people to commit terrible acts, an inside view of the Palestinian crises and the creation of a culture of martyrdom as the only goal in life. An important book to add to any understanding of the Palestinian resistance movement, this book unmasks the heroic picture usually used to portray Palestinian 'freedom fighters' and shows the brutal honest truth.
Rating:
Summary: A close look at desperate situations and extreme actions
Review: Suicide bombing is an inherently polarizing topic: I don't think it's possible to lack an opinion on it or to be unmoved by its occurrences. What Victor does in this book is to give her readers a close look into the lives of Palestinians who choose to become kamikazes. She does treat male bombers, but her main focus is on the relatively new breed of female suicide bombers, shahidas, who have arisen since 2002.
The author interviews inmates, surviving families, Palestinian officials, and psychologists. She also speaks with Israeli officials and the families of bombing victims. She offers a harrowing and fascinating examination of extremist religion and politics, occupation and oppression, hopelessness, and hatred. It's not a pretty picture, and Victor doesn't offer easy answers. She's neither pro-Palestinian nor pro-Israeli; rather, she empathizes with her subjects' human pain, whether its the pain of a bereft mother or that of a young woman who chooses to strap on a bomb and walk into a crowded street.
Victor frames the personal stories with a view of the larger political context for suicide bombing, concentrating on events from the mid-1980s to early 2003. She discusses how the intifadas have energized Palestinian resistance and how the failed early 1990s peace process affected the conflict. In examining the strategies of recruiting and training female suicide bombers, she is especially critical of exclusively male power structure of Palestinian organizations like Hamas and Hizbollah and the use they make of women as political symbols. She characterizes the process as predatory and describes how the women involved have little power and few choices - and how theyt frequently seek martyrdom as a release from a repressive society that allows them severely circumscribed lives. Victor's book would benefit from a stronger organizational scheme (she's a film-maker, and the book progresses more like an episodic film than a structured piece of writing), but it remains a vivid and balanced examination of a fascinating and unsettling topic.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre!
Review: The author gives the personal stories of the females who became suicide bombers while she was writing her book: Wafa, the 1st suicide had been divorced by her husband because of her failure to provide him with children. She was living at home with no chance to remarry because of her lack of dowry and infertility when she decided to commit suicide. Darine, the 2nd suicide was a brilliant university student whose parents nonetheless were pressuring her to marry. Before she committed suicide she told her friend that she would rather die than marry and become a "slave". Ayat, the 3rd suicide had become despondent because her family was being persecuted by their neighbors. The townspeople were envious because Ayat's father made a good living working for Jews. They told him to quit but he refused saying he didn't hate Jews. Soon the family was shunned by the townspeople who even surrounded their home preventing them from leaving to go to work or shopping, etc. After Ayat's suicide, her father was fired from his job for having a suicide bomber daughter, and the family was once again on good terms with their neighbors. Andalib was the 4th suicide. She was a 21 year old seamstress obsessed with movie stars. After 2 female relatives were arrested for attempting suicide, she became obsessed with female suicide bombers. She committed suicide after getting confirmation from her handlers that she would become a "superstar" all over the Arab world after killing herself and others. Hiba is the final suicide mentioned. She had been raped by a retarded uncle when she was in her early teens and was so traumatized that she covered herself so that only her eyes showed whenever she left her home. Her mother tried to keep the rape quiet, much to Hiba's dismay.
Ms. Victor also discusses several other women who attempted suicide or committed attacks upon Israelis, some with the motive of being in a place "safer" than their Palestinian homes: an Israeli jail. The author discusses the leading terrorist organizations in Palestine and their evolving views on female suicide bombers. One of the spokesmen for a terrorist organization said that since the bombers tended to be from families that were comparatively well-off, it proved they were not committing suicide because they were depressed by their poverty. However, the same is true of America; it is the upper and middle class person who tends to commit suicide, not the poor. Perhaps the poor are already used to adversity and have learned to cope with it. This book is the story of a tragic waste of life. After all the suicide and killing that has been done, what has been gained? A security fence.
Rating:
Summary: Shallow, imbalanced, sensationalist
Review: This book evoked a variety of different emotions during the one day it took me to read it: sadness for the families of the suicide bombers and for their victims; hope at stories of compassion without politics in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. But most of all I felt absolute disgust and anger at Victor's attitude towards women and towards Palestine, her simplistic analysis of 'what makes a suicide bomber' and her conspicuous silence on the overwhelming role of the barbaric Israeli occupation. Firstly, women are constructed as merely the puppets of their male handlers. The implication is that MEN make suicide bombers, THEY are the ones responsible for 'transforming' women from 'bearers of life' into 'killing machines' not the women themselves. Rather, the women are constructed as having 'personal problems' or 'mental instabilities' as a result of sterility or illegitimate pregnancy. The implication being that these women (and by association women in general) are governed by their WOMBS and cannot therefore have taken a reasoned decision to become martyrs. These psychoses are the deeper, additional forces at work which create female suicide bombers. The situation for men is apparently a lot more straightforward: "when an adolescent boy is humiliated at an Israeli checkpoint, from that moment, a suicide bomber is created" (p28). Just like that. Secondly, Palestinian society is constructed as nothing more than a 'suicide infrastructure' of HAMAS, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade which is responsible for the 'culture of death' and for fathering a population entirely comprised of unexploded human bombs. Not only is the possibility that the atrocities of the Israeli occupation might have contributed to the rise of suicide bombers completely ignored but there are apparently no ordinary people in Palestine who struggle to make a living and live peacefully under Israeli tanks. Thirdly, Victor collapses the entire situation into Yasser Arafat. It's all his fault. The horrendous conditions in which the Palestinians live? That's ALL the result of his inabilities to negotiate a Palestinian state on the square-centimetre of Holy Land the Israelis are prepared to relinquish. It's got nothing to do with the chokehold in which Israel has the Palestinian economy and society. A repellently Orientalist and morally reprehensible book. Read Wendy Pearlman's OCCUPIED VOICES instead.
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