Oliver claims that our culture values basic life over quality of life—“mere survival over meaningful life.” (133) “Moreover, our conception of life is reduced to what Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls ‘bare life’ rather than quality of life. Life in and of itself is seen as value that exists outside of the realm of politics.” (133) Our assumption that value of bare life occurs outside the social construction has lead to much of the horror that we experience when faced with suicide bombers. We attempt to save (certain) lives at any cost, and the fact that “bare life” is trumped by quality of life is shocking within the Western imaginary. “Suicide bombers make explicit the connection between the body and politics that has been denied within Western politics.” (133) The vulnerability of the body makes the technologically progressive West fearful of the “other” who utilizes the body in the same way we utilize guns, bombs, etc. “Hatred and the urge for revenge can be seen as a manifestation of fear, fear of our own vulnerability.  Victimization of the others literally puts our own vulnerability onto others.” (138) She notes that other authors have claimed that our vulnerability and use of violence is the very essence of humanity. She claims instead that our true essence, that that defines us as different from all others species, is our ability to forgive. “But this translation requires time and energy, scarce commodities in today’s global economy…” (140)

    Suicide bombers force us to realize that others outside of our Western imaginary do want more than “bare life,” and that some will even sacrifice their bare lives in order to give others the chance for meaningful lives. Also, their lives become meaningful by their actions, which demand quality of life over mere existence. “Ghassan Hage too maintains that suicide bombing is a last resort in a fight against colonialization; but, he argues, it becomes part of a culture of martyrdom because both material and symbolic resources are so limited by the colonial situation. In other words, martyrdom becomes a way of gaining symbolic cultural capital when one’s culture is perceived as being under siege.” (143) Not only just the East, but even within Palestinian culture itself, women have also been relegated to the realm of “bare lives” and their physical bodies—as vessels of reproduction. They lack access to particularly meaningful lives, and thus the bomber gains a sense of meaning by using the (patriarchally constituted) body outside of its prescribed role. Julia Kristeva suggests “that the shahidas represent the triumph of a culture of death that values women’s biology over biography, reproductive life over meaningful life.” (144) Female suicide bombers not only break the rules of the West and challenge our notions of body politics, they also confront Palestinian notions of women as strictly reproductive “bare life” bodies.