December 9, 2006 Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) Women in terrorism: a Palestinian feminist revolution or gender oppression? 1 Dr. Anat Berko 2 and Prof. Edna Erez 3 Theoretical approach and background information The place of women in terrorism and the extensive media coverage received by attacks involving women 4 have been on the agenda of discussions of global terrorism. Throughout history, women have participated in national struggles for independence, in wars and more recently, in terrorist attacks. Since September 2000, when the insurrection the Palestinians call the “Al- Aqsa intifada ” broke out, women have played an increasingly active role in various aspects of Palestinian terrorism. The reasons usually given for the inclusion of women in terrorist activities are that they can pass unsuspected and undetected, and they attract a great deal of media attention. The use of women and children in carrying out terrorist attacks is effective and the media 1 This article first appeared in Hebrew in Tsohar l’vatei hasoar (A Window on Prisons), Collected Articles No. 10, November 2006, pp. 5-11. An expanded version of the study's findings will appear in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2007. 2 Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel. Dr. Berko is the author of The Path to Paradise – The inner world of suicide bombers and their dispatchers, soon to be published by Praeger. 3 Kent State University, Ohio. 4 In Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Chechnya, Turkey and Sri Lanka.