By Caleb R. Newton
For practical purposes, the Palestinians - as a people and as individuals making up a people - have the needs shared by all people everywhere. Their lacking needs are under the heading of human development, and they include things like individual self-determination - in other words, freedom - including freedom from forced labor and the like: less government, not more government (like in the current Palestinian Authority expanding its reach to a part of a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
There is a correlation between the societal ills of the Palestinians and the terror perpetrated against the Israeli people. Correlation does not force causation, however, and the impact of the lack of human development on the Palestinian terrorist acts must be carefully articulated. Attributing terror to poverty and the like can absolve the terrorists of responsibility for their actions: "Oh, they're just poor frustrated youths."
Still, the Palestinian people live, quite frankly, under oppression and are in desperate need of liberation from their own Palestinian leadership and society. The society is rife with corruption and cronyism, and it leaves the average Palestinian lacking the three things that he reportedly desires most: a job, to survive, and to improve the education and health systems. Mind that there is no mention of a state. Out of this societal ground, terrorism springs towards the Israeli people.
Poverty and the lack of human development are, in short, a major contributing factor to Palestinian terrorism, made viable when followed by Islamism. The Palestinians have little to live for, tangibly speaking, and then Islamism comes along and offers them a way to capitalize on their possession of little other than surety of their death. Next, terrorism. The fire’s initial spark is Islamism, but its kindling is the society before it gets there. It would burn far less violently if the Palestinians did not have their freedoms taken away by a corrupt society, the same issue affecting most of the world.
As an aside: the Palestinian people are a legitimate entity, as legitimate as the American people. Whether or not ethnic homogeneity characterizes the Palestinian people, or, for that matter, the American people, what matters is that each respective entity represents a social compact entity that forms a society. Shall the Palestinian leadership's refusal to recognize the existence of the Israeli culture be returned in kind? Such is not fitting.
The context of the Palestinians' human needs not being met is similar to the context in which much of the rest of the world suffers from a lack of human development - the power, wealth, resources and vision are improperly concentrated in the hands of a few. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are corrupt, in the tradition of Abbas's predecessor Arafat, pocketing the millions given to his people as aid from the United Nations. The situation is not one of degrading the ideals of capitalism in which man is rewarded according to his work, with some naturally richer and some poorer. No, the system is corrupt and anticapitalistic, meaning that the concentration of power and wealth is unnatural.
The poverty and lack of human development primes the Palestinian societal soil to receive, as it were, the seeds of terrorism. The corruption of their society, a form of social cronyism, leads to the devaluation of the individual’s life. Individuals have nothing left of themselves, their leadership doesn’t care for them, and the point of their society is termed to have nothing to do with them. Their society is taken by leaders and driven to satisfy the leaders’ “needs” for power - meaning a “political horizon,” as opposed to a human development horizon.
Such a devaluation of the Palestinian individual contains another contributing factor to terrorism, termed mortality salience: the conclusion that one’s death is inevitable, leading to a decreased desire to seek to preserve life. Palestinian terrorists who willingly go into situations where they may be killed are exhibiting a rejection of life and flagrant acceptance of death. Death being, in dire economic circumstances (that have nothing to do with Israel), all they have left, followed by certain interpretations of Islamic religious teachings, leads to violent actions to carry out their confrontation with their own death.
There is a correlation between the societal ills of the Palestinians and the terror perpetrated against the Israeli people. Correlation does not force causation, however, and the impact of the lack of human development on the Palestinian terrorist acts must be carefully articulated. Attributing terror to poverty and the like can absolve the terrorists of responsibility for their actions: "Oh, they're just poor frustrated youths."
Still, the Palestinian people live, quite frankly, under oppression and are in desperate need of liberation from their own Palestinian leadership and society. The society is rife with corruption and cronyism, and it leaves the average Palestinian lacking the three things that he reportedly desires most: a job, to survive, and to improve the education and health systems. Mind that there is no mention of a state. Out of this societal ground, terrorism springs towards the Israeli people.
Poverty and the lack of human development are, in short, a major contributing factor to Palestinian terrorism, made viable when followed by Islamism. The Palestinians have little to live for, tangibly speaking, and then Islamism comes along and offers them a way to capitalize on their possession of little other than surety of their death. Next, terrorism. The fire’s initial spark is Islamism, but its kindling is the society before it gets there. It would burn far less violently if the Palestinians did not have their freedoms taken away by a corrupt society, the same issue affecting most of the world.
As an aside: the Palestinian people are a legitimate entity, as legitimate as the American people. Whether or not ethnic homogeneity characterizes the Palestinian people, or, for that matter, the American people, what matters is that each respective entity represents a social compact entity that forms a society. Shall the Palestinian leadership's refusal to recognize the existence of the Israeli culture be returned in kind? Such is not fitting.
The context of the Palestinians' human needs not being met is similar to the context in which much of the rest of the world suffers from a lack of human development - the power, wealth, resources and vision are improperly concentrated in the hands of a few. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are corrupt, in the tradition of Abbas's predecessor Arafat, pocketing the millions given to his people as aid from the United Nations. The situation is not one of degrading the ideals of capitalism in which man is rewarded according to his work, with some naturally richer and some poorer. No, the system is corrupt and anticapitalistic, meaning that the concentration of power and wealth is unnatural.
The poverty and lack of human development primes the Palestinian societal soil to receive, as it were, the seeds of terrorism. The corruption of their society, a form of social cronyism, leads to the devaluation of the individual’s life. Individuals have nothing left of themselves, their leadership doesn’t care for them, and the point of their society is termed to have nothing to do with them. Their society is taken by leaders and driven to satisfy the leaders’ “needs” for power - meaning a “political horizon,” as opposed to a human development horizon.
Such a devaluation of the Palestinian individual contains another contributing factor to terrorism, termed mortality salience: the conclusion that one’s death is inevitable, leading to a decreased desire to seek to preserve life. Palestinian terrorists who willingly go into situations where they may be killed are exhibiting a rejection of life and flagrant acceptance of death. Death being, in dire economic circumstances (that have nothing to do with Israel), all they have left, followed by certain interpretations of Islamic religious teachings, leads to violent actions to carry out their confrontation with their own death.
(Image: Wild Horse Felled by a Tiger - Eugène Delacroix)
[The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dissecting Society]
Hmm...poverty is not a contributing factor to terrorism, never has been, but it's nice to say so these days. Is Caleb after a job at the UN? :-)
ReplyDeleteHow would you define terrorism, Jake?
DeleteSpot on Anonymous, spot on!
ReplyDeleteOf course nothing "justifies" terrorism, by the way.
ReplyDelete"Palestinian terror derives from sheer hatred towards the Jewish people, period. "
ReplyDeleteYes...but why do they hate? That's where my article comes in.
The underpinnings of personal devaluation do not actually change the outcome of the terrorism being caused by hatred. Hatred, though- why? What caused the hatred? "It emanated from inside of them..." is weak. It came from Islamism, which allowed them to seize an outlet for their mortality salience.
DeleteNewton,
DeleteThey hate us because they are jealous of us. Notwithstanding, another explanation can be given: a sense of humiliation, of loss of control (still, we can ask: sense of loss of control over something they never had?); but never poverty.
Islamism exacerbates their hatred, their jealousy, because al-Quran is a book that promotes that jealousy (that then evolves towards hatred). But again, how about those secular Muslim Arabs? And how about the Christian Arabs (not all of them, albeit)? What makes them hate the Jews? Jealousy.
After jealousy has been introduced, we can now discuss Palestinian corruption, injustice, less power of purchase etc (cause Arabs in Palestine look at the "other side" and they realise that Israelis, Jews Muslims and Christians alike, have more than them: more freedom, more human development, more fun, more justice, more everything despite their attempts to disrupt it).
And by the way, if you watch the video, I shared in my previous comment, you'll see that despite their relative human development they still speak of "suffering under occupation" due to checkpoints...checkpoints. Add this to President Abbas' declaration that "All Israel is occupation", and you will find that the Palestinians themselves answer the question asked in your title.
Cheers
Dror Eydar said "The reason for the current wave of terrorism is not frustration and despair, but the hope of using it to secure gains, because terrorism is a tool." it's that simple.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=14235
Arabs know that their armies can't win a war against Israel, so their instruments to wage a war of attrition are Terrorism, diplomatic and media war.