ABSTRACT

A second layer of resistance to opposing the Militant Islamist International movement is the conviction-or argument from misunderstanding-that before fi ghting terrorism, we must fi rst “deal with the roots of terrorism.” Th is is oft en a petition to escape from acting, observes Andrew N. Pratt, a Germany-based director of a global counterterrorism program. Certainly, terrorism has “roots”; it is not done in a fi t of passion. In the cases of famous Palestinian terrorists as diff erent as Leila Khaled and Abu Nidal, the two charged the new state of Israel with taking over their family lands. Th ere might be other connections between Palestinian terrorism and refugee camps, and we should not deny that poverty and hopelessness can be a recruiter to militancy. But one form of deprivation or abuse does not justify another that deliberately assaults the innocent or the later generations. Secondly, how could poverty explain-in developed countries such as Uruguay and Germany and Spain-their experiences of widespread terrorism in recent times? Meanwhile, many desperately poor areas such as the slum belts around Latin American cities are not producing international political terrorist groups. Any causal link between “economic deprivation” and terrorism is unproven and tenuous. Th e United Nations lacked a basis for its statement, in 2002, that terrorism results from “oppression,” which in turn is usually “economic oppression.”2