Women and Jihad ─ Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media

Rachel Avraham’s new book explores the ways in which Palestinian female terrorists have injected their narrative into the Arab, American and even Israeli media. The publicity objectives of Palestinian terrorists are examined in order to better understand how they hope to realize them. An analysis of media materials demonstrates the means by which Palestinian female suicide bombers, whose motives differ from male suicide bombers in many key regards, have had their depressing life stories exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian terrorist organizations. Avraham examines media coverage of Palestinian terror attacks in Israel through the lens of the terrorists’ agendas and the extent to which those agendas have infiltrated the media. The book explains how journalists can cover terror attacks without giving in to the publicity objectives of the terror organizations.

Rachel Avraham is JerusalemOnline’s news editor and political analyst. Avraham received her MA in Middle Eastern studies from Ben-Gurion University and her BA in government and politics with minors in Jewish studies and Middle Eastern studies from the University of Maryland at College Park