Research Paper Draft 1

Hey all,

I wrote a paper on coverage by major US newspapers of Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber. Some of you have mentioned that you'd like to read it so here it is (be warned, it is long.) Since this is the first draft, I'd appreciate any feedback/corrections/pointing out glaring mistakes you might notice:

First (as requested) the (very early draft) abstract:

I don't have a title yet

            On January 27, 2002, 27-year-old Wafa Idris left her family home in the al-Amari refugee camp outside of Ramallah. A few hours later Idris detonated a 20-pound bomb inside a shoe store in Jerusalem. The first female suicide bomber of the Palestinian conflict, Idris quickly became a subject of the American media’s fascination. In the weeks following her death, Idris’ family, her life story, her final act and her legacy were discussed in vivid detail.

            Wafa Idris’ story did not exist in a vacuum; the American conversation about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, about women’s roles in the Middle Eastern societies and about terrorist suicide attacks had been informed by media coverage of these stories, especially since 9/11. While it is difficult to say precisely how, and to what degree, one is shaped by the other, it is clear that American public opinion, (and, as a result, the policies of the American government,) and the American media influence one another.

            For this research project, I will look at the language used in the American news media’s coverage of Wafa Idris’ death. I will attempt to answer several questions about this coverage. First, was the coverage of Wafa Idris’ story different than other suicide bombers because she was female? What were the differences (if any) in the coverage and what effect do these have on the perception of those consuming it? How did depictions of Wafa Idris relate to public opinions of Palestine and of the Palestinians?

            In order to answer these questions, I will examine the language used in print articles from the five American newspapers with the largest circulations. For background information and context, I will rely on books and scholarly articles examining existing media narratives about women in the Middle East and Palestine, as well as the history of suicide attacks. 

            My research so far indicates that Wafa Idris was primarily depicted in one of two ways. Many articles highlight possible emotional causes for Idris’ suicide, implying that her death was not a political act but an individual reacting to personal struggles. These articles tend to focus on Idris’ divorce and infertility, de-emphasizing or outright denying her political and religious inclinations. Additionally, references to September 11th suggest associations between Idris' attack and al-Qaeda's. Idris is frequently referred to not as Palestinian but as "Arab."  These depictions are not mutually exclusive, and seem to point to the same conclusion. Consumers of these news stories are encouraged to believe that Wafa Idris acted either out of personal despair, as a result of the larger Arab/Muslim oppression of women, or as an Arab, (rather than Palestinian,) Jihadist opposing not just Israel but the entire Western world, much like al-Qaeda. 

I still don’t have a title

On the morning of January 27, 2002, few outside of the al-Amari refugee camp had heard of Wafa Idris, a 27-year old Palestinian woman and volunteer paramedic. The American people learned of Idris’ death by nightfall, but her name would not be widely known for several days. As the first successful female suicide bomber of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, her gender sparked headlines in papers across the country as her name was suddenly known around the world.

            America’s leading newspapers’ portrayal of Wafa Idris largely emphasize her personal life and her emotional difficulties, implicitly or explicitly suggesting her death was the result of the plight of Muslim women and not the Palestinian nationalist struggle.  Alternately, Idris is depicted as a “Femme Fatale.” Describing her physical beauty and lack of religious zeal as a mask for her dark intentions, this narrative frames Idris’s suicide as a strategic decision made by Fatah leadership and indicative of the increasing brutality of all terrorist organizations. Either narrative distanced Idris from the Palestinian struggle for statehood, placing her life and death in the context of a larger struggle between Western and Arab values. The result of these narratives is the implication that Idris as a woman or as an Arab was irrational, suggesting that she was compelled by the larger allure of jihad or her overwhelming, distinctly feminine personal sorrows, but not with any agency of her own.

            In order to demonstrate the prevailing media narratives surrounding Wafa Idris and her death this paper will examine stories and headlines from the five American Newspapers with the largest circulations. These papers- The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Wall Street Journal and The USA Today- represent the most widely-read and the most influential newspapers in America. Each owned by a distinct corporation, they have a combined daily circulation of almost 6 million copies[1]. While they do not offer a complete picture of the entire American newspaper industry, they do influence journalistic standards for much of the rest of the industry by setting examples of commercial success. Many smaller newspapers rely on reporting from these leading papers, either by directly reprinting syndicated material or by drawing from these sources for their own reporting.[2] The methods, styles and editorial decisions of these papers suggest larger trends in print media even if they cannot be claimed to speak for all American newspapers. This is a wide enough selection to speak to the exposure that most Americans might have had to this story, and also to account for the regional and ideological spread of the most common sources of national news in 2002.

            The language used in these newspapers’ coverage of Wafa Idris will be scrutinized to demonstrate the gendered accounts of Idris and her death, particularly the denial of Idris’ agency in her own final act. Secondary sources drawn from scholarly works speak to the implications of this language, and provide context for media depictions of Palestinians in general, and of suicide bombers and women in particular. Though the coverage was by no means uniform in quantity or methodology, each newspaper consistently depicts Idris as an emotional, manipulated pawn in the plans of men, be they Idris’ male relatives or Yasser Arafat.

            The 20-pound bomb that Idris detonated on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem was packed with nails, dramatically increasing the damage it caused[3]. The explosion killed one man and injured 113 others.[4] Early media reports contain few details about Idris herself; in fact several misreport her identity entirely, repeating claims that the attacker was a member of Hamas and a student at Al-Najar university in Nablus.[5] Because Idris left no indication of her intention, even abstaining from the somewhat common practice among other suicide bombers of taping a farewell message, initial reports are cautious to even classify the attack as a suicide bombing[6]. Articles in each paper suggest that, because she is a woman, Idris’ attack has a larger implication, even if they are not certain as to what. In The Washington Post Richard Cohen editorialized; “If in fact the death of …Wafa Idriss [sic] was a suicide and not an accident in the course of a terrorist mission, then a kind of sexual frontier has been crossed.”[7] The Wall Street Journal ominously warns “in a change that could herald a further escalation in the days ahead, the militant Hezbollah movement said the bomb in Jerusalem was set off by a young Palestinian Woman...”[8] Days later, The LA Times article reflects the continued uncertainty as “Israeli police still wonder whether Idris detonated the bomb intentionally or was killed in a premature detonation…”[9] While a number of factors contributed to these newspapers’ caution in declaring Idris a suicide bomber, this caution establishes from the very start a hesitancy to accept Idris as capable of committing this act intentionally. Of the five newspapers, only The New York Times and The Washington Post include later stories confirming that Idris had, in fact, been declared a suicide bomber.[10]

            As authorities confirmed the identity of the bomber, information about her family and personal life began appearing in American newspapers. One detail of her personal history, her divorce, was emphasized in several accounts. In some instances this was casually mentioned, as in The Washington Post; “But there are also individual circumstances. Idriss, [sic] a divorcee, saw bloodshed up close in her volunteer work assisting medics.”[11] This article, which was published months after Idris’ death and covered the three female suicide bombers who followed in her footsteps, discussed possible motivations for female suicide bombers. While the sentence seems to imply that Idris was reacting to “bloodshed” (the source of the bloodshed is conspicuously left unspecified), the odd addition of the world divorcee seems to refer to the established suggestion that Idris’ divorce contributed to her suicide. Indeed, immediately after her death, an article in the same paper states, “in life, Idriss had been a 28-year-old childless divorcee and a ninth-grade dropout. In death she has become her home town's heroine, an object of admiration and amazement to Palestinians”[12] The symmetry of this language contrasts the lowliness of Idris “in life”- under educated and divorced- with her posthumous fame, glorification and even objectification. The emphasis on this is reinforced later in the piece. “By the standards of Palestinian society, in which divorce is rare, divorced women are stigmatized and large families are prized, it was a blow. Of the 35 girls in her grade school class, she was the only one to be divorced and one of just two without children.”[13]  Similarly, The New York Times describes her state as “divorced by a husband disappointed over their failure to have children.”[14] In her book Army of Roses, journalist Barbara Victor likewise ascribes Idris’ marital troubles and infertility as the central cause of her death. Victor argues that Idris’ inability to fulfill the expectations of her society- to marry and produce children- ultimately left her vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation.[15] Media analyst and scholar Dorit Naaman is critical of this view, arguing that it prioritizes Idris’ struggle as a woman in a male-dominated society over her struggle as a Palestinian under Israeli occupation[16]. While a few articles do quote friends and family members insisting that Idris’ suicide was not related to her divorce or infertility, this contradiction is always framed as a challenge to a prevailing suggestion.[17]

Indeed, even her work as a paramedic for the Red Crescent is introduced as a result of her post-divorce despair.[18] Her actions in the field are likewise described in maternal terms, as several accounts of how she “cradled a 15-year old boy” as he died from a gunshot wound[19] are considered as the catalyst for her suicide attack. Several articles mention her love of children[20], and a few even speculate that male relatives may have manipulated her or pressured her into the act[21]. 

            The effect of this emphasis on Idris’ divorce and maternal nature is to suggest that the conditions pushing her toward this particular end are the construct of her patriarchal society, framing her action as the result of personal despair and isolation, her distinctly female condition. The implication follows that, had she been able to have children and remained married, had she been a successful woman by the standards of her society, she would never have committed her attack. This approach not only undermines her agency in the decision, it suggests that the underlying cause of the tragedy is not the Israeli Palestinian conflict but the values of male-dominated Muslim society.

            Further removing Idris from the discussion of Palestinians’ struggle for statehood was the editorial decision to describe her as “Arab” rather than “Palestinian”. This is evident in every one of The New York Times articles about Idris, all of which identify her as an “Arab woman” in the headline.[22] One article, which particularly focuses on the reaction to the attack in Arabic-language media, declares in the headline that the “Arab” press is glorifying Idris, a position repeated in the article’s lead. The end of the article details the way Palestinian media sources “have not dwelled on the matter”[23] Saudi, Lebanese and Syrian media outlets are said “to be silent about her”[24]. While the headline and the lead- parts of the article likely to be seen or skimmed even if the entire article is not read- present the Arab press as a singular, unified entity, the substance of the story itself directly contradicts this. Describing Idris as Arab, while not factually incorrect, both removes her from her Palestinian identity and links her to a second narrative- the conflict between the West and the Arab world.

            Two of the newspapers include allusions to the fact that, of the 113 people injured by Idris’ bomb, five were members of the Sokolow family, and included Mark Sokolow, a 9/11 survivor who worked in the World Trade Center[25]. The USA Today, The New York Times and The Washington Post each devote an entire article to Sokolow’s account of the attack, and each additionally include references to his status as a 9/11 survivor in other articles about the bombing.[26] One article refers to the “notorious footage of Palestinian women dancing in the streets on Sept. 11”[27] as evidence that al-Qaeda will begin using women to carry out suicide missions as well. This effort to associate the Palestinian resistance organizations with al-Qaeda comes less than five months after September 11^th.  The emotional impact of these references on American readers- particularly by The Washington Post, which caters to a city directly traumatized by the attacks of that day- suggests an editorial intent to encourage American readers to identify with Israelis as fellow victims of the same kind of terror and to associate Palestinians in general and Wafa Idris in particular with al-Qaeda. The effect of this, taken in consideration with the widespread belief that al-Qaeda is motivated by an irrational hatred for the West, is to suggest that Idris, too, acted out of blind hate and not rational, conscious choice. 

            Even the papers that don’t specifically mention 9/11 utilize linguistic cues that associate Idris with irrational religious extremism, particularly when also tying her action to Yasser Arafat. Her relatively secular identity is often presented as a contradiction to conventional wisdom.[28] Her death, and the response to her death by Palestinians, is framed in distinctly religious terms. “They called Wafa Idriss's [sic] name from the minarets this morning, the loudspeakers' message echoing through the teeming side streets and trash-choked alleys of this squalid Palestinian refugee camp.”[29] The accounts of her family and friends’ pride in the way Idris died frequently include references to the lack of remorse for the civilian loss of life[30].  That this reaction is the socially expected practice of the family of martyrs is never suggested, even by the New York Times reporter who observes Idris’ mother breaking down in tears and saying “I lost my daughter” after reporters leave her room[31].

 The violence of Idris’ last act is overwhelmingly described as senseless. Multiple sources describe her action as some variation of “blowing herself to pieces”[32] and repeatedly mention the fact that she was decapitated by the blast.[33] Graphic language in the articles opening, such as ““The blast littered Jaffa Street with body parts, debris and glass shards, leaving blood-soaked pavement and transforming the midday shopping rush at the start of Israel's workweek into a tableau of carnage,”[34] shock the reader as an introduction. The repetition of particular phrases- a cult of martyrdom, or death;[35] enraged, rage or anger;[36] hatred,, chaos, and radicalization[37]- seems to reinforce the reader’s sense that there can be no explanation for the brutality, save for the emotional, irrational nature of Idris and the Palestinians.

In contrast with the graphic descriptions of Idris’ death, most newspapers also include equally detailed depictions of her physical beauty. She is described as “oval-faced”[38] with “doe-brown eyes”[39] and hair that is “softly curled”[40], “a cascade of auburn”[41] or “chestnut curls”[42] and is several times mentioned for wearing lipstick or other make-up[43]. Her physical beauty and other appealing, familiar details of her personality are offered up as a disguise; each article includes at least one reference to her gender as her means of avoiding detection by Israeli security forces[44].  This implies that there is an expected profile of a suicide bomber and that Idris did not fit it, that her relatable, likeable qualities could not reasonably be expected exist in the same person capable of the destruction and brutality she caused. Such implication both heightens fear- after all, if pretty girls could be suicide bombers than any one could be- and objectifies Idris, making her less of an individual with agency and intention and describing her instead as a weapon or a strategic instrument of her terrorist handlers.

Alternately, The Wall Street Journal is light on descriptive detail, (it, in fact, never even mentions Idris by name,) but alludes to the entire incident as an aspect of the continuing distrust the Bush administration has for Arafat. Arafat, it is implied, either cannot or will not stop these suicide attacks. Idris herself is, in her complete absence from the pages and pages of articles the paper devotes to the conflict, insignificant, but her act and her gender are cited as indicative of further escalation[45]. Her act is said to provoke Israel to “tighten control” of Palestinian lands and to “continue strikes against militant Palestinians- operations that have fueled Palestinian anger.”[46] Palestinians are describes as “angry”, (again, an emotional response) because of strikes against militants, no other possible explanation for the violence is offered. Idris is thus denied identity, let alone agency, in this particular narrative.

The words chosen by reporters and editors shape the way a reader approaches and absorbs a story. Americans who rely upon these leading newspapers (and the other media sources who take journalistic cues from these examples of successful journalism) for information form opinions based on the perception of the people, places and events gleaned from these words. The extent to which these opinions shape American politics and American policy, while difficult to quantify, is significant enough to give practical consequence to the narratives suggested by American media. In the case of Wafa Idris, the leading American newspapers have used her gender to reframe her story in emotional terms, prioritizing twin narratives of the plight of oppressed Muslim women and the irrationality of Muslim rage over any narrative that places Idris’ act as a conscious choice compelled by her personal political views and the circumstances of life under the Israeli occupation.

            Denying Idris agency in her final act, attributing it to emotional instability or the larger clash of Islam and Western Civilization is the type of reductive journalism that leads to a widespread misunderstanding about the nature of suicide terrorism. In his book, Dying to Win: The strategic logic of suicide terrorism Robert Pape approaches the subject as a statistician, examining the data for five years of suicide attacks, and concludes that suicide terror is a strategic choice almost always committed against a democratic country occupying a weaker state. It is, in short, a decidedly different phenomenon than described by the dominant media narrative[47]. Pape argues that understanding attacks like the one carried out by Wafa Idris only in the context of her personal despair or as irrational religious hatred not only misrepresents the nature of her attack and others like it, it prevents the public from understanding and supporting strategies that will ultimately reduce and prevent future attacks[48]. Wafa Idris’ gender, and the novelty of her place in history, ensured that the coverage of her would be both greater in quantity and in detail than most previous suicide attackers. Her death, and her decision to kill might rightly be examined in the larger contexts such as of the struggle for Palestinian statehood and the discussion of women’s evolving roles in combat, but doing so at the expense of her own role as an individual acting with intention is irresponsible. These newspaper accounts are not factually inaccurate, but have constructed a narrative that is both reductive and misleading.

---

[1]Audit Bureau of Circulations US Newspapers (http://abcas3.accessabc.com/ecirc/newstitlesearchus.asp)  Accessed 2/2011

[2] Several local papers covering Idris’ death cited these papers as contributing to the report. For example: Larry Kaplow, “Palestinians Laud Female Bomber as ‘example for us’” Palm Beach Post, Florida. 01/31/2002.

[3] Barbara Victor, Army of Roses: inside the world of Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers. Emmaus, PA. Rodale, 2003. PAGE#

[4] Victor, PAGE #

[5] For example, “Sources said the bomber was Shahnaz Amouri, a student at Al-Najar University in Nablus, a Hamas hotbed that has produced five suicide bombers in recent months.”

Matthew Kalman, “Female bomber kills self, Israel man in Jerusalem”. The USA Today,  01/28/2002. This misidentification is found in The Washington Post article on the same date.

[6] James Bennett, “A Sept. 11 Survivor is Hurt as Man Dies in Jerusalem Attack” The New York Times, 01/28/2002.

[7] Richard Cohen, “Why the Turn to Suicide?” The Washington Post, 02/05/2002

[8] Karby Leggett, “US Raises Pressure on Arafat to End Strike- Palestinian Leader’s Ability, Will are Question As Suicide Bombers Hit” The Wall Street Journal 01/28/2002.

[9] Marjorie Miller, “Palestinian Bomber Stood Out From the Rest; Mideast: Wafa Idris, 30, the first female suicide attacker, grew up in a Fatah family” The Lost Angeles Times 01/31/2002.

[10] James Bennett, “Israelis Declare Arab Woman Was in Fact a Suicide Bomber”. The New York Times. 02/09/2002.

Lee Hockstader, “Palestinians Hail a Heroine; Israeli See Rising Threat; Suicide Bomber Elicits Pride and Fear”. The Washington Post, 01/31/2002

[11]Libby Copeland, “Female Suicide Bombings: The New Factor in Mideast’s Deadly Equation”. The Washington Post 04/27/2002.

[12] Hockstader, 1/31/2002.

[13] Ibid.

[14] James Bennett, “Arab Woman’s Path to Unlikely ‘Martyrdom’”. The New York Times, 01/31/2002

[15] Victor,

[16] Dorit Naaman, “Brides of Palestine/Angels of Death: Media, gender and performance in the case of the Palestinian female suicide bombers” from War & Terror: Feminist Perspectives, Ed. Karen Alexander. University of Chicago, 2008. 125.

[17] For example, from The New York Times ““Ms. Idris's mother, Wasfieh Mabrook, said her daughter had recovered from the trauma of miscarriage and divorce. "My daughter did not do that out of desperation," she said of the bombing.” Bennett, 01/31/2002

[18] From The Washington Post: “Idriss [sic] went back to school after her divorce”. Hockstader, 01/31/2002 and The New York Times: “after her divorce, when she finished her training to be a volunteer with the Palestine Red Crescent Society,” Bennett, 01/31/2002

[19]Hockstader, 01/31/2002, also in The Los Angeles Times, Miller, 01/31/2002.

[20]For example, from The New York Times, “Ms. Idris, a volunteer medic who raised doves and adored children, was out to kill as many Israeli civilians as she could.” Bennett, 01/31/2002

[21]“The true motives and precise objective of this young woman may never be known. It is not clear to what extent she may have been manipulated by other Palestinians, perhaps including her eldest brother, a leader of the Fatah faction of Yasir Arafat.” Bennett, 01/31/2002

[22] Bennett, 01/31/2002 and 02/09/2002 and

James Bennett “Arab Press Glorifies Bomber as Heroine” The New York Times, 02/11/2002 and

Joel Greenberg, “Portrait of an Angry Young Arab Woman.” The New York Times, 03/01/2002

[23] Bennett, 02/11/2002

[24] Ibid.

[25] Bennett, 01/28/2002.

[26] Bennett, 01/28/2002, Hockstader 01/28/2002, Kalman, 01/28/2002, also:

 Lee Hockstader, “Sept. 11 Survivor On Visit To Israel ‘Grateful’ After Another Close Call”. The Washington Post, 01/28/2002.

[27] Patricia Pearson, “Hard to imagine a female bad guy? Think again”. The USA Today, 01/30/2002.

[28] For example, “She was not going to paradise. She was merely killing Jews.” Cohen, 02/05/2002.

[29] Hockstader, 01/31/2002.

[30] For example, “The women said they had no qualms about killing Israeli civilians…"We don't have any objections to a woman doing anything like this," Idris' mother added. "If I could do it myself, I would."” Miller, 01/31/200.  Evidence of this implication is additionally found in a reader’s letter to The New York Times on 02/01/2002, “A Palestinian bomber”. “The mother of Wafa Idris….is the real enemy of peace. ”

[31]Naaman, 121. QUOTE, Bennett, 01/31/2002. 

[32] Bennett, 01/28/2002 and 01/31/2002.  Hockstader 01/28/2002 and 01/31/2002.

[33] Hockstader, 01/28/2002 and 01/31/2002. Bennett, 01/31/2002,

[34] Hockstader, 01/28/2002

[35]Copeland, 04/27/2002, Pearson 01/30/2002, Cohen 02/05/2002, Bennett 01/31/2002

[36] Copeland, 04/27/2002,  Bennett, 01/31/2002, Leggett 01/28/2002, Greenberg 03/01/2002

[37] Copeland, 04/27/2002, Leggett 01/28/2002,  Hockstader 01/31/2002

[38] Hockstader, 01/31/2002.

[39] Miller, 01/31/2002.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Hockstader, 01/31/2002.

[42] Bennett, 01/31/2002.

[43] Hockstader, 01/31/2002, Bennett 02/11/2002.

[44] “Israel discovered that Sunday, when a Palestinian woman easily eluded security checks and detonated a bomb on a busy Jerusalem street.” Pearson, 01/30/2002. Also: Miller, 01/31/2002, Bennett 01/28/2002, Hockstader, 01/28/2002.

[45] Leggett, 01/28/2002.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Robert Pape, Dying to Win: the strategic logic of  suicide terrorism, Random House 2005. 4.

[48] Pape, 244-245.