Ahmed Sheikh (born 1949) is a Palestinian journalist and the current editor-in-chief of the Qatar-based television channel Al Jazeera.
In 2006 Sheikh gave an interview to correspondent Pierre Heumann of Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche based in Zürich, and said that in Arab culture, a suicide attack is called a "commando attack" and is "precisely not suicide".
[1] In this interview Sheikh agrees that there are many issues with the state of Arab countries' economies, that "the rich get richer and the poor get still poorer", and that the public schools and public hospitals are in a very poor shape.
When asked by Heumann, if he meant "to say that if Israel did not exist, there would suddenly be democracy in Egypt, that the schools in Morocco would be better, or that the public clinics in Jordan would function better?
"[1] When asked what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with these problems, and whether it is a matter of feelings of self-esteem, he replied, "Exactly.