Cheap Mikdad: Into the Mind of a Terrorist (Video) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mikdad: Into the Mind of a Terrorist

The documentary was produced and directed by Dan Setton in 1998, as part of a series entitled "The Archives of the Mossad." It is very timely now, as a glimpse into the mindset of the many evildoers still at large in the world, for whom the killing and maiming of innocent people is okay, since the political message is more important than worrying about human life.

The documentary is beautifully done, and carefully chronicles the progression of events that lead from the Lebanese village that Mikdad grew up in, to life in Beirut during the civil war, to his schooling at the American University of Beirut, and through to his hooking up with Hezbullah. Mikdad was a tall unassuming man with a wife and child, and was deemed perfect for the mission, in 1996, of setting up a terror operation in Jerusalem.

It was absolutely fascinating to see how his false identity was arranged, and how, via a circuitous and varied travel route, he made his way from Lebanon to Zurich, and then to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the spared innocents, while Mikdad was holed up in his East Jerusalem hotel room, working on his explosives, the C-4 detonated, costing him both legs, one hand, and both eyes. We then see Mikdad being interviewed, from prison in Israel, about his activities, and life, including his rumination that he misses holding his infant child the most.

(There is a fascinating interview with an IDF officer, who suggests that the very professional Israeli security services may have had a hand in making Mikdad's C-4 unstable -- if that was the case, then all the more warning to terrorists, when you enter the big leagues, you may receive the hard ball)

What the viewer understands is that for Mikdad and his associates, there he has no value system which would put the brakes on his murderous extremism. In fact the islamic extremists that infuenced him simply hold that no islamic land should ever be lost to the nonbeliever, so thus the State of Israel must simply be destroyed, and that human life has no value in the struggle.

Mikdad was eventually repatriated to Lebanon as part of an exchange of prisoners that Israel and Hezbollah worked out. As he himself stated, he has paid the price for his acts, by being returned to his home a complete cripple. However, one doesn't sense that he renounces his extremist mindset, so even in pieces, the viewer sees no redemption in Mikdad. Thus, in the current War on Terrorism, the lesson for us is that there is no negotiating with these extremists. ... They must simply be attacked and destroyed before they do the same to us.

There is a companion VHS video entitled "Shaheed; The Making of a Suicide Bomber."... I highly recommend both videos to understand the terrorist mindset, and to understand what the long-suffering Israelis have had to deal with for so long.