ABSTRACT
In the course of Arafat's campaign to "soften up" Israel up for concessions even more far-reaching than those of the Oslo accords, well over 300 suicide bombers succeeded in detonating themselves—in crowded buses and cafes, in university cafeterias, at a Passover seder, and almost any place where children could be found in sizable numbers. Princeton historian Sean Wilentz observed in The New Republic in 2002 that the "root cause" of suicide bombings appeared to be "money, education and privilege". Professors imprisoned in Marxist cliches of socioeconomic determinism concluded—on the basis of no evidence whatever—that the suicide bombers, mostly products of upper middle class families, had acted out of poverty, hopelessness, and despair. Ted Honderich spent his academic career at the University College in London, where he was professor of mind and logic. The stream eventually became a torrent to suggest that what Irving Howe liked to call "the explosive power of boredom" is a distinct occupational hazard of academia.
