The path to paradise : the inner world of suicide bombers and their dispatchers / Anat Berko ; translated by Elizabeth Yuval ; foreword by Moshe Addad.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [181]-183) and index.

1. Dispatcher of Palestinian suicide bombers : "find me sad guys" -- 2. The role of the dispatcher : "everybody has his job : I dispatch the suicide bomber and he explodes" -- 3. Organization : "the dispatchers don't send their own sons to blow themselves up" -- 4. Dispatchers are held in high esteem : "I'm considered someone who does something good" -- 5. Dispatcher macho : "my father taught it what it means to be a man and didn't allow US to be cowards" -- 6. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Hamas founder : "the shaheed doesn't die, he lives with Allah" -- 7. Women in prison : "she poured boiling margarine on my face" -- 8. As Machiavelli said, "the end justifies the means" -- 9. The book of mug shots : "Huda can't talk to you now, she's having her face done" -- 10. The value of women : "I'll never do anyone any good, anyway" -- 11. The terrorist's dream : "I've wanted to be a shaheeda ever since I was a little girl" -- 12. Double standard : "sure, I'd attack a kindergarten! I am able to look at your children - and explode!" -- 13. Is the "other" a human being? : "do Israeli mothers feel pain like we do?" -- 14. A teenage shaheed : "my classmate enlisted me as a shaheed; he was paid and gave me 100 shekels" -- 15. Paradise : "all that is forbidden in this world is allowed in paradise"

"Exploring the inner world of suicide bombers has been the focus of Anat Berko's research for years. She has worked to understand the thought processes of a people who can choose to place explosives on their bodies and kill themselves, taking as many other people with them as they can." "To learn about the inner world of suicide bombers and their dispatchers, Berko entered Israel's most heavily secured prison cells and conducted intensive and extensive interviews with male and female suicide bombers who had failed their missions, as well as with their dispatchers - including former Hamas spiritual and operative leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (later assassinated by Israel)."--BOOK JACKET.