Book Review: The Making of a Palestinian Suicide Bomber

This is from a Canadian author, originally from Palestine. An educated man, I thought it would be interesting to gain some insight from his point of view. For, indeed, we are faced with those who use a skewed, mistaken form of religion to justify their civil action.

This book makes a case for the suicide bombers feeling frustration with the political process, as well as the case for Palestine having their own state. It, in fact, justifies the actions of the bombers. It was a shame. I was hoping for more insight. Musleh's first book covered the territorial fights over land and political power, against Israel. This might be more of the same.

I really didn't grasp his claim that if we understand the motivation of a Palestinian bomber that we will be able to resolve the problem. It certainly isn't a book that answers the bigger problem of those who are motivated to commit murder in the name of religion, civil rights, glorification, violent tendencies, or jihad. That is a book that would be timely, for many have murdered civilians for many reasons, from The Crusades, to modern-day barbaric Daesh.

Positives

The maps really help! They are  bit small for my feeble eyes, but the give context. They show the territory granted Palestine, slowly lost, and then taken over by Israel. Good graphics.

Editing and errata

Unfortunately, a big mistake many writers make is to use a self-publishing, on-demand group like Xlibris.com, without hiring an editor. Often, with such books, there are far too many simple errors. They range from lack of use of commas or hyphens, too many homophonic errors, run-on sentences, or grammatical errors that take attention away from the reader's concentration as she tries to determine the meaning of the sentence. It makes one fight with a sentence, having to decipher its meaning. Standard English allows us to quickly read, and understand, what it is that the writer means.

The last couple of self-published books I have read include much repetition. This author uses such phrases as, '[the suicide bomber] is dead, terminated, expired and of no use to serve himself, his people or his objective.' I found this exact statement on page 11 and page 13.

And this, on page 34 and page 45, 'to end all hostilities between the two foes once and for all.'

On page 27, 'the put an end to the state of Israel.'

The use of hyphens for compound adjectives should read: well-financed, Israeli-built, ill-prepared, and are sadly lacking in many cases. This short book is published in e-format, as well as hard cover, and I hope corrections can be made. 

About the author

Mitri I. Musleh earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and political science, then later in social studies, both from the University of Regina. He earned his masters in political science from Atlantic International University. This is Musleh’s third published book after “The Ambiguous Triangle” and “In the Eyes of a Foreign Student”. He currently resides in Regina, Saskatchewan.