The world often sees the issue of Palestine through the tragedy and horror of suicide bombings. An expression of despair by powerless people against an oppressor armed with modern weapons.

The first female suicide bomber struck in January 2002. Her name was Wafa Idris - the only daughter of a family of refugees who were driven out of their home near Tel Aviv. She was 28, an ambulance volunteer. John Pilger talked to Khalil Idris, Wafa's brother, to ask, what makes an ambulance volunteer, a carer, become a suicide bomber?

Israeli historian Professor Ilan Pappe believes that suicide bombings are exploited by the Israeli establishment in order to discredit the Palestinian cause:

"The suicide bombs are presented to the Israeli public as an insane act by an insane people? with whom there is no chance for peace. Instead of putting a wider analysis which would say there is a way out of the suicide bombs. While everybody condemns them, and rightly so, there is a way out of it. And the way out of it is to provide the circumstances in which these young people would find avenues of hope instead of avenues of despair. "

Suicide attacks against civilians are clearly crimes - and they are used by extremists. But the extremists rely on the brutality of the occupation and the despair of the young volunteers. Some extraordinary Israelis are brave enough to recognise this.

Rami Elhanan is one Israeli father who knows about suicide bombing. On September 4th 1997, his daughter, Smadar, was killed by one.

She was 14 years old. Rami's daughter was shopping with two friends, one of whom was killed, the other seriously injured in the attack.

Rami is a graphic designer and a former soldier. His father survived Auschwitz, but his grandparents, six aunts and uncles perished in the Holocaust.

John Pilger asked Rami, "How do you distinguish the feelings of anger that any father would have felt at losing your daughter in such circumstances?"

"I'm not crazy. I don't forget. I don't forgive. Someone who murders little girls, anyone who murders little girls, is a criminal and should be punished.

"But if you think from the head and not from the gut, and you look what made people do what they do - people that don't have hope, people who are desperate enough to commit suicide, you have to ask yourself have you contributed in any way for this despair? For this craziness? It hasn't come out of the blue: the boy whose mother was humiliated, in the morning, at the checkpoint, will commit suicide in the evening.

"The suicide bomber was a victim - the same as my girl was. Of that I am sure.

"You have to understand where this suicide bombers come from. Understanding is part of the way to solving the problem."