'Cult of death' - or lazy thinking?

That common American/Israeli refrain that Arabs have a cult of death, whereas Israelis/the West love life is older than, e.g., suicide bombings. It is, I think, a thought well-embeded in imperialist thinking, along with the idea that Arabs are irrational. In the 1973 October War, figures such as Chaim Bar-Lev said similar things - that Arabs started a war that they expected to loose: "...it is clear to us that willingness to start even a lost war for the sake of restoration of Arab honor is consistent with the Arab mentality" (cf. Mearshimer, Conventional Deterrence, p.159) Whereas, obviously, the Egyptians were engaged in a limited aims war.