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TERRORISM AND POVERTY. It's de rigeur, particularly among Democratic politicians, to put the onus for terrorism on the poverty and economic despair that roil the Middle East. But the research doesn't back that up -- and hasn't for some time now. In the Wall Street Journal today, David Wessel summarizes some of the findings:
Backgrounds of 148 Palestinian suicide bombers show they were less likely to come from families living in poverty and were more likely to have finished high school than the general population. Biographies of 129 Hezbollah shahids (martyrs) reveal they, too, are less likely to be from poor families than the Lebanese population from which they come. The same goes for available data about an Israeli terrorist organization, Gush Emunim, active in the 1980s. Terrorism doesn't increase in the Middle East when economic conditions worsen; indeed, there seems no link. One study finds the number of terrorist incidents is actually higher in countries that spend more on social-welfare programs. Slicing and dicing data finds no discernible pattern that countries that are poorer or more illiterate produce more terrorists. Examining 781 terrorist events classified by the U.S. State Department as "significant" reveals terrorists tend to come from countries distinguished by political oppression, not poverty or inequality. Public-opinion polls from Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey find people with more education are more likely to say suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq are justified. Polls of Palestinians find no clear difference in support for terrorism as a means to achieve political ends between the most and least educated.That's not to say there's no connection, just that those who actually carry out the attacks are not the dregs of society. It could be that educated, would-be terrorists look around their community, feel acutely humiliated by the contrast between the condition of their countrymen and the excesses of the West, and strap on an explosive belt. Who knows? But even so, the roots of terrorism are considerably more complex than mere poverty (or, for that matter, a hatred of our freedoms). One thing that is clear is that terrorism is abetted by a loathing of the US and an anger over our perceived imperialism in the Middle East, sentiments George W. Bush responded to by making us much more loathed and demonstrating serious imperialistic tendencies in the Middle East. You know, I'd prefer if he just thought it was about insufficient economic aid.--Ezra Klein
