Author:
Publication: IsraelNationalNews
Date: November 26, 2004
URL: http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=72652
A new study by a Harvard professor
has found that terrorism is not caused by poverty - thus further undermining
the main premise behind international aid to Arabs of Judea, Samaria and
Gaza (Yesha).
The Harvard University Gazette reports
that Alberto Abadie, associate professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School
of Government, "examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth,
political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations
that have been targets of terrorist attacks ... Before analyzing the data,
Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots
in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic
factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other
factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between
a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences... (New York
Sun, Nov.10, 2004)
Arab journalist Khalid Amayreh,
himself from the Yesha region, has likewise written that it "is simply
nonsense" to "claim that Islamic terrorism in Israel, as elsewhere, is
the product of poverty, backwardness, and ignorance ... Islamic fundamentalism
is not a product or by-product of poverty. Several studies have shown that
a substantial majority of Islamists and their supporters come from the
middle and upper socio-economic strata ... The fact that city-dwellers
[in Judea-Samaria], who are generally more educated and better off economically,
have consistently lent more support to Islamists refutes the widely held
assumption that Islamist popularity thrives on economic misery." (Jerusalem
Post, Feb. 21, 1995)
Morton A. Klein, National President
of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), commented: "Poverty is not
the problem; hatred is the problem. An entire generation of Palestinian
Arabs has been raised to hate Jews and Israel. Giving them American money
will not solve the problem - in fact, it will have the opposite effect,
sending a message to them that they need not change their ways. Like German
society after World War II, Palestinian Arab society will require a lengthy
and intensive period of de-Nazification, to wean them away from their hatred
and violence. What they need is years and years of education towards peace,
democracy, and coexistence. As long as the PA educates its people for hatred,
in the official PA schools, summer camps, television, radio, newspapers,
speeches, and religious sermons, peace will not be possible."
