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Poverty Doesn't Create Terrorists

(New York Times) Alan B. Krueger - Most terrorists are not motivated by the prospect of financial gain or the hopelessness of poverty. New research by Claude Berrebi, a graduate student at Princeton, has found that only 13% of Palestinian suicide bombers are from impoverished families, and 57% have some education beyond high school, compared with just 15% of the population of comparable age. This evidence corroborates findings for other Middle Eastern and Latin American terrorist groups. There should be little doubt that terrorists are drawn from society's elites, not the dispossessed.
2003-05-30 00:00:00
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