Suicide bombers are often compared to smart bombs. From the point of view of their dispatchers, they are highly effective, inexpensive forms of weaponry, and there is no need to invest in their technological development. Suicide bombers are in fact smarter than smart bombs because they can choose their own target―and they can react to circumstances on the ground, changing their target, or their timing, in an instant, to ensure the maximum damage, destruction, and death. Of course, unlike smart bombs, suicide bombers think and feel, they have histories, stories, beliefs, desires―in short, they have an inner world. 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.Do male bombers really believe that death will transport them to a paradise where they will be greeted by virgins? Are they victims of unbearable pressure to commit this act of terror? What are female bombers promised in the hereafter? Is there something that links all suicide bombers? Berko also explores the world of those who drop the smart bomb―the dispatchers: who are these people who persuade others to go calmly to their horrific deaths?

In March 1983 a mass poisoning was reported in the girls' middle school of Arrabeh, a village near Jenin in the West Bank. The malaise recurred in the following weeks in Jenin, Hebron, and other towns in the West Bank. All the sufferers, mainly young Arab women, were hospitalized, but soon released. The toxic agent which allegedly caused the malaise was not found; Israeli authorities concluded that the attacks were caused by mass hysteria. Nonetheless, both local Palestinian authorities and the PLO leadership accused Israel of an attempt of mass poisoning, aiming to affect the women's reproductive system and thus to tamper with the natural growth of the Palestinian population. The accusation was taken up by the media, not only Arab but also in the West (French, British, German, etc.). Once the hoax became apparent, the whole affair disappeared from the media. Compares the "poisoning affair" to blood libels in the past. Raises questions regarding the strange credulity of the Western press, otherwise very cautious in presenting similar affairs in other countries, its anti-Israeli disposition, and its disproportionally great interest in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Contends that the media's incrimination of Israel is a manifestation of its latent antisemitism. Where the Arabs incriminate the Jews as a people, the Westerners, reluctant to look ethnophobic, incriminate the Jewish state. Includes many quotes from the press.