"In The Road to Martyrs' Square, their remarkable and creepy account of life in the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, Oliver and Steinberg, who lived with various Palestinians there, give us a look at the Hamas milieu from within. It's a world where the cult of 'martyrdom' is celebrated in graffiti, videos, and posters, creating a toxic atmosphere of sadism, kitsch, and religious ecstasy. The book is valuable for its exhaustive documentation of the martyr cult's various uses of propaganda."
—The New York Review of Books
"A highly unusual and - its subject matter notwithstanding - thoroughly enjoyable book. Part memoir, part travelogue, part portfolio and review of street media - from graffiti to pre-mission videotapes - the book provides just what it promises: a journey into the world of the suicide bomber. . . . The second [part] introduces a unique and quite fascinating collection of major scripts of the intifada, replete with the symbols of self-sacrifice, martyrdom, jihad and victory. . . . Oliver and Steinberg are interested in drawing a portrait, not analysing a movement. They write with humour and often affection for their subjects, and keep their own personalities entirely out of the story. With a light hand they provide a cogent account of the distinctions and the tensions between the nationalists and the Islamists, and the gradual institutionalisation of Hamas over the course of the first intifada. They provide harrowing accounts of the interrogation of collaborators and the murder of an Israeli. They describe not a cult of martyrdom, but an entire social system that supports martyrdom. Without proffering analysis, they describe tight social networks, intense small-group loyalty and the motivating power of the desire for revenge. The presentation of the final video is riveting. The authors describe the irrational exuberance - or what they call the 'ecstatic obliteration' - of this group of young men, for whom life has never been better, more intense or so full of meaning, than on the night before they kill themselves and others. Far from being depressed, suicidal types, these are excited and happy young men revelling in being the centre of attention. Oliver and Steinberg write: 'What the rank-and-file [of Hamas] seemed to live and die for, in the end, was neither hospitals nor politics nor ideology nor religion nor the Apocalypse, but rather an ecstatic camaraderie in the face of death on the path of Allah.' . . . Riveting storytelling."
"[A] beautifully written yet disturbing book . . . written by authors who demonstrate great understanding of the Palestinians' internal and external struggles"
"An intense, street-level tour of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . [A] unique study"
With the beginning of the first intifada in 1987, American scholars Oliver and Steinberg spent six years living in Gaza, collecting interviews and Palestinian political ephemera, much of it related to the multifaceted organization known as Hamas, which first carried out suicide bombings during that time. The pair characterize Hamas's ideology as schizophrenic; the book they have produced feels intentionally disorienting. Part one episodically traces Hamas's development through a political biography of its leader, Sheikh Yasin (who was killed by an Israeli missile last March). Oliver and Steinberg offer a tremendous amount of anecdotal texture, giving a chilling sense of what it was like to live in Gaza as it was engulfed by an Islamism that professes "not only not to be afraid of death, but to love it passionately." Part two offers an unprecedentedly extensive set of photos, translations and interpretations of Hamas graffiti; this section is horrifying and fascinating. Part three offers the most sustained and detailed views, in English, inside the preparation and deployment of suicide bombers, featuring extended exchanges with cell members and the families of the bombers themselves. Knowledgeable, colloquial, relatively nonpartisan and deeply skeptical and smart, this book offers an intensive look at one of the major forces in Palestinian society, one that is as unsettling as it is penetrating. (Jan.) Corrections: In the Nov. 22 review of America's Military Today by Tod Ensign, the author's current employment was misstated. Ensign is the director of Citizen Soldier, not of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Almost Paradise will, contrary to what's stated in our review (Dec. 13), include a chapter and epilogue dealing with the outcome of the trial of Daniel Pelosi for the murder of Ted Ammon.
—Starred Review Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Of suicide as a way of life: a study of the culture of violence surrounding the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. When the intifada began in 1988, independent scholars Oliver and Steinberg moved to Gaza and lived with a Palestinian family to study the situation. "We gladly talked to anyone who would talk with us-nationalists and Islamists, leaders and followers, stone throwers and spokesmen, militants and bystanders," they write. Over the next years, some of those people talked with them reluctantly, while others were quite proud to speak openly of how they would "cut off the head of a Jew or a collaborator." Oliver and Steinberg are sympathetic to the plight of the dispossessed Palestinians, including the suicide bombers they take pains to humanize even while showing them to be automata trained by murderous masters. In a memorable sequence, Oliver and Steinberg recall the Hamas ("zeal") movement's spiritual leader: Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, the author of much of the rhetoric of Palestinian terrorism, who, "renowned for his asceticism, would in later years be seen driving around the camps of Gaza in a specially outfitted brown Range Rover, which some said was a gift from the Saudis, while others insisted it was from none other than Arafat." Image is everything, of course, and the authors work with a large collection of photographs and videotapes depicting such things as a knife-wielding giant hand stabbing an Israeli soldier "like a machine gone mad" and mobs of young children waving copies of the Quran while lionizing fallen participants in "martyrdom operations"-not all of whom seem to have believed that they would really earn martyrdom in the bargain. The authors also look closely at therhetoric of the suicide bombers and their coaches-for in such things as taking one's own life in the service of a cause, one Hamas leader tells us, "the importance of 'spurring on' cannot be underestimated."Of much interest to students of the Middle East, and of the psychology of cults.
"In The Road to Martyrs' Square, their remarkable and creepy account of life in the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, Oliver and Steinberg, who lived with various Palestinians there, give us a look at the Hamas milieu from within. It's a world where the cult of 'martyrdom' is celebrated in graffiti, videos, and posters, creating a toxic atmosphere of sadism, kitsch, and religious ecstasy. The book is valuable for its exhaustive documentation of the martyr cult's various uses of propaganda."—Christian Caryl, The New York Review of Books
"Knowledgeable, colloquial, relatively nonpartisan and deeply skeptical and smart, this book offers an intensive look at one of the major forces in Palestinian society, one that is as unsettling as it is penetrating.... Oliver and Steinberg offer a tremendous amount of anecdotal texture, giving a chilling sense of what it was like to live in Gaza as it was engulfed by an Islamism that professes 'not only not to be afraid of death, but to love it passionately.'"—Publishers Weekly (starred review)"A deeply engaging firsthand account of the culture and mentality of Hamas.... Because the authors have lived near their subjects amid the squalor of refugee settlements in Gaza, their book blends daily misery and bizarre episodes in its careful depiction of a 'martyr' culture.... Has great value in explaining Islamic terrorism and the nature of conflict in the Occupied Territories."—Library Journal"This beautifully written yet disturbing book offers a unique perspective on the intifada and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, written by authors who demonstrate great understanding of the Palestinians' internal and external struggles."—Washington Times"Anne Marie Oliver and Paul Steinberg have produced an engrossing documentary account—psychologically and culturally rich, and often also poetical—of how despair, religion, and politics conspired to create Palestinians who regard death, and apocalyptic destruction, as redemptive." —Yaron Ezrahi, author of Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel"An extraordinary ride through the culture of violence in Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank. Through the authors' dramatic narrative we see the world through the eyes of those whom outsiders regard as terrorists. It is based on one of the most formidable arrays of first-person material ever collected on the lives of Islamic suicide bombers-conversations with activists, interviews with their friends and families, videotapes of their last statements, and wall posters and graffiti describing their deeds. We now have a compelling inside view of the mindset and the worldview of one of the most volatile cultures of terrorism in the Middle East. Though it is highly informative, their narrative reads with an eloquence and immediacy that will captivate anyone concerned about world affairs, radical politics, and the potent mix of religion and activism in the contemporary Middle East." —Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence"A chilling look inside the mind of Palestinian suicide terrorists. Using a vast assortment of primary sources gathered in the region—from personal testimonials to martyr videos to posters and graffiti—Oliver and Steinberg reproduce the personal journeys and public expressions of martyrs and martyrdom in often shocking detail. This important book shows that support for suicide bombing in Palestine goes far beyond a tiny fringe and compels us to ask how such violent behavior can become acceptable and supported by a society at large." —Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism"Oliver and Steinberg have written a book that guides us through the surreal but all-too-real world of Palestinian martyrdom, of the suicide-homicide bombers. They help us look, listen, hear, and even smell what would otherwise be awful and intolerable, but is so crucial for us to know. This book is a remarkable blend of personal memoir and deep immersion in all facets of the world they are witnessing, describing, and documenting. It is a presentation that allows the reader space for in-depth psychological and political analysis. Their account of the apocalyptic scripts and deeds of destruction, martyrdom, and access to Paradise are sobering, and yet they remind us of the need to find the more muted scripts of hope and empathy that are also there in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." —Roberta J. Apfel and Bennett Simon, editors of Minefields in Their Hearts: The Mental Health of Children in War and Communal Violence"Of much interest to students of the Middle East, and of the psychology of cults."—Kirkus Reviews
