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Terrorists are Educated, Not Poor

(Guardian - UK) - A new report on "Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism" prepared by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., has found that involvement in terrorism has little to do with economics. An examination of the backgrounds of 129 Hizballah members, compared with the Lebanese population as a whole, shows that the militants were less likely to come from poor families and were significantly more likely to have completed secondary education. A similar pattern holds for Palestinian suicide bombers. The latest intifada began when economic optimism and education levels among Palestinians were rising. Thus, the violence cannot be blamed on deteriorating economic conditions.
2002-07-30 00:00:00
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