In the context of the Palestinian conflict, the use of suicide attacks were mainly confined to two years of the second intifada. It's not a tactic I support, in fact it was a tactic that was entirely self defeating for the resistance and set back the cause of international solidarity by a generation. It is widely accepted by the resistance that it was self defeating tactic. Which is one of the reasons such attacks rarely occur now. Nevertheless, it occurred in a context and it is important to remember what that context was.
The first intifada was almost entirely based around mass protest and demonstrations. Unless you count stone throwing against tanks to be violent, which I don't, then it was also predominantly peaceful. Guerrilla attacks occurred but they took a back seat to mass protest, strikes, rioting and civil disobedience, non payment of taxes, underground schools, political graffiti etc. The Israeli response to that uprising was to crush it with unbelievable brutality against civilians. Israeli tactics included the widespread use of snipers against stone throwers. Including snipers firing from helicopters. brutal night raids and mass arrests of over 120.000 people.The Israelis also used artillery and tank fire against demonstrators. Rabin ordered A mass campaign of breaking the arms and legs of stone throwing kids, a policy that resulted in literally tens of thousands of kids having their limbs broken as the result of punishment beatings and a daily toll of death that killed over a thousand people in two years. This was a deliberate policy of preventing any form of Ghandian civil disobedience by using overwhelming force.
It is no coincidence then that the first suicide bombing occurred in 1993 at the end of the first intifada. It was a direct response to the brutality of the Israeli "iron fist" policy to crush the first intifada and the desire by some to reply to Israel's brutality and violence by inflicting some casualties on the other side. Suicide attacks also increased in 1994 following Baruch Goldstein's massacre of 29 worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
When Ariel Sharon sparked the second intifada by visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque in 2000, the Israelis immediately responded with extreme violence including live fire against demonstrators. In the first 5 days of the intifada they killed 47 Palestinians and wounded nearly 2000. Israel also opened fire on protesting Israeli Arabs killing 12.
It was in this context then that Palestinians began targeting Israeli civilians in suicide attacks starting from 2001, Throughout the 90s, suicide attacks averaged one or two a year. From 2001 that number rose to about 40 a year with 40 in 2001 and 47 in 2002. That number declined down to 23 in 2003, 17 in 2004 and 9 in 2005 and 3 in 2006. The last suicide bombing in Israel occurred in 2008 when there were 2 attacks. The last attack launched by Hamas was against an IDF post not civilians when 3 suicide attackers injured 13 soldiers at the Kerem Shalom border crossing in 2008. Hamas has since announced the cessation of suicide attacks.
This is what Amnesty said about the violence of the second intifada
The overwhelming majority of cases of unlawful killings and injuries in Israel and the Occupied Territories have been committed by the IDF using excessive force. In particular, the IDF have used US-supplied helicopters in punitive rocket attacks where there was no imminent danger to life. Israel has also used helicopter gunships to carry out extrajudicial executions and to fire at targets that resulted in the killing of civilians, including children...Hamas and Islamic Jihad have frequently placed bombs in public places, usually within Israel, in order to kill and maim large numbers of Israeli civilians in a random manner
What reputation? The UN vote spoke for itself. So do the many demos and organisations that oppose the occupation, many from within the global Jewish community and active groups in Israel. They don't have a reputation, aside from being 'cnuts'! 
