Pigskin burial for bombers: Urban legend or miracle cure?
June 4, 2001

Signs that appeared in Israeli protest demonstrations on Saturday following the suicide bomb attack outside the Dolphin Disco contained odd references to the skin of a pig. The apparent reference is to the belief, currently circulating in some Israeli civilian and military circles, that Islamic suicide bombers may be deterred if they believed that their bodies would be wrapped in the skin of a pig and buried. This would prevent them, according to Islamic law, from reaching heaven and enjoying the pleasures of paradise that would otherwise await the martyr who had sanctified himself by killing infidels in the name of Islam.

Emmanuel Sivan of the Hebrew University, an expert on radical Islam, confirmed on IDF Radio that there was a historical basis, however slim, for the belief. The British authorities reportedly put down an 1880 revolt of Moslems in Kashmir by burying the remains of suicide attackers in the skin of pigs. However, Sivan said that subsequent uses of this technique by the British were less successful, and that there was no reason to believe that such a practice would be successful if used by the Israeli government. Still, Sivan admitted that senior IDF officers supported implementing such a policy.