When terrorists, especially Islamic terrorists, attack, slaughter, rape, decapitate and burn alive innocent men women and children. When they kidnap men, women children and babies, they want to strike terror in the hearts of their victims. Then the flee and hide in civilian dress in hospitals, mosques, schools, UN compounds, homes and behind their women and children to maximize their casualties in case of retaliation by the attacked country.
You can't wage 7th C wars with 21st C laws.
The Rules of Engagement in these conditions must be adapted to such asymmetrical warfare. Especially when the population supporting these terrorists are 💯 behind this heinous, psychopathic, nihilistic behavior.
In such conditions, no mercy should be shown. These terrorists should be hunted down and terminated wherever they are hiding including their overseas leadership. There should be no humanitarian aid until they all surrender or eliminated.
And last but not least, all their families expelled and never allowed to return.
Well, the US stopped the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII with drastic measures. They stopped it. It must be used again to stop the scourge of Islamic terrorism.
There’s a difference between defeating a sovereign state as opposed to “stopping” a world wide philosophy. Can’t be done. Just have to keep limiting their efforts and effects o the rest of us.
True, Nazism still exists all over the world, Islam as well. To control mosquitoes, you need to dry up the swamp. The present swamp is petro-dollars. When the black swamp dries up, so will the petro-dollars and the mosquitoes will vanish.
If Israel was allowed to finish the job, it would happen. It would require hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. It would require eliminating any hope of a Palestine. We had to firebomb city after city in Germany and Japan to pacify them. Israel needs to fight until the Palestinians unconditionally surrender. These third party ceasefires just get in the way.
I appreciate the listing of your sources at the end of this sobering essay. All the more troubling that, if accurate, the perpetrators and other rank and file members are educated, relative to their “cause”, that is. They are still ignorant in the broader sense. Gotta keep crippling them at least. The head of the snake will never be severed. The moral world can only hope to limit the damage by utilizing whatever means necessary. Happy Chanukah to you.
I tend to cite in the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) and these are the precise references I provided in the original:
Abadie, Alberto. 2006. “Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism.” American Economic Review 96 (2): 50–56.
Abrahms, Max. 2008. “What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy.” International Security 32 (4): 78–105.
———. 2025. “Does Terrorism Succeed? New Lessons from Hamas, the Global Intifada, and Antisemitism in America.” In October 7: The Wars Over Words and Deeds, edited by Asaf Romirowsky and Donna Robinson Divine, 109–125. Newton, MA: Academic Studies Press.
Benmelech, Efraim, Claude Berrebi, and Esteban F. Klor. 2012. “Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism.” Journal of Politics 74 (1): 113–128.
Berrebi, Claude. 2007. “Evidence about the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism among Palestinians.” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 13 (1): 18–53.
Berman, Eli, and David D. Laitin. 2008. “Religion, Terrorism and Public Goods: Testing the Club Model.” Journal of Public Economics 92 (10–11): 1942–1967.
Blomberg, S. Brock, Gregory D. Hess, and Akila Weerapana. 2004. “Economic Conditions and Terrorism.” European Journal of Political Economy 20 (2): 463–478.
Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2005. “The Quality of Terror.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 515–530.
Crenshaw, Martha. 1981. “The Causes of Terrorism.” Comparative Politics 13 (4): 379–399.
Ehsan, Rakib. 2019. “Does Poverty Cause Terrorism? It’s Complicated.” CapX, May 2.
Firester, David E. 2023. Evolutions in Suicide Bombing: Exploring the Relationship Between the Tactic and Its Application by Non-State Armed Groups Across Various Conflict Zones Over Time. PhD diss., City University of New York, Graduate Center.
———. Forthcoming. “A Target-Centric Approach to Distinguishing Between Terrorism and Guerrilla Warfare.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
Flatow, Stephen M. 2019. “Poverty Isn’t the Cause of Terrorism, So Let’s Stop Blaming It.” Jewish News Syndicate, April 29.
Gaibulloev, Khusrav, and Todd Sandler. 2023. “Common Myths of Terrorism.” Journal of Economic Surveys 37 (2): 271–301.
Guerin, Cécile, and Zoé Fourel. 2021. “A Snapshot Analysis of Anti-Muslim Mobilisation in France after Terror Attacks.” Vision of Humanity, April 26.
Hassan, Nasra. 2001. “An Arsenal of Believers: Talking to the ‘Human Bombs.’” The New Yorker, November 19.
Krueger, Alan B., and Jitka Maleckova. 2003. “Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (4): 119–144.
Kydd, Andrew, and Barbara F. Walter. 2002. “Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence.” International Organization 56 (2): 263–296.
McKenzie, Pete, Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa, Adolfo Arranz, and Jitesh Chowdhury. 2025. “‘It Was Dead People Everywhere’: Inside Australia’s Hanukkah Massacre.” Reuters, December 15.
Moran, Matthew. 2017. “Terrorism and the Banlieues: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks in Context.” Modern & Contemporary France 25 (3): 315–32.
Piazza, James A. 2006. “Rooted in Poverty? Terrorism, Poor Economic Development, and Social Cleavages.” Terrorism and Political Violence 18 (1): 159–177.
Rakhamilova, Zina. 2025. “Stop Blaming Israel for Global Antisemitism.” Jerusalem Post, October 7.
Sabri, Amir, and Günther G. Schulze. 2021. “Are Suicide Terrorists Different from ‘Regular Militants’?” Public Choice 188 (1–2): 155–181.
In the West, terrorists often come from middle class university educated backgrounds. Rarely are they working class. The violence is always against free societies, rarely against repressive ones. You say mental illness doesn’t play a part. Nevertheless, terrorists enjoy violence. They enjoy taking life. You would not want to live anywhere near such people.
Furthermore, terrorists can become sexually aroused by their violence as the rapes of men, women and children on October 7th demonstrate.
By the way, billions of dollars have flowed in to ‘Palestinian’ areas. It does bugger all to stop terrorists.
The factual revelations of this analysis are pointed towards actual Islamist terrorists. They were indoctrinated and recruited within their Muslim communities and cultures — and it is there that the ‘poverty’ supposition was proven false by Dr. David Firester’s research and statistics.
However, there is another direction in which to apply the foundational suppositions of the study — whether poverty recruits terrorists — that might explain much of the illogical political and sociological winds buffeting us here in the USA for the last decades.
Why has affordability recently emerged as the primary drag on Republican popularity? Despite the massive foreign investments being brought in; the reduction in drug prices Trump extorted from pharma; the erratic but ultimate equalization of tariffs, Doge, tax modifications, insurance industry coercion and many other of Trump’s unprecedented fiscal programs are working, it seems logical, towards improving personal finances. Only it just takes time.
But social-media addled Americans are impatient if not confused or totally shortsighted. They are incredibly uncomfortable living pay check to pay check and feeling impoverished. They are actually the type of poor people the study supposed were prime terrorist recruitment prospects.
Here’s another factor your research calls out. In the last decades, the persistent insistence
to continually identify perceived marginalized sectors of our society, be they Me Too, BLM, illegals, trans, white privilege, Jews, the rich, the homeless, the cast of the Epstein files, and next month’s favorite flavor of friend or foe. As you said: “…the most important drivers are state repression and sharp social cleavages: ethnic, religious, or ideological divides that terrorist organizations can exploit.”
Ergo, what is in fact happening to the world’s Westerners, mainly youth — they are responding to the current media and political party ‘affordability’ input by adopting the hate blaming and violence that you originally supposed would radicalize Muslims. Your theory was right, except misplaced: it’s doing it to Americans! Which makes sense because, when you get down to it, the social scientists hypothesizing in the first place, are products of Western culture themselves.
Please tell me Dr. Firester, does what I’m saying make some sense to you? And if it does, will identifying the diabolical process help root it out at its source?
I gave it a little more thought and identified another misdirected dissonance corollary you to ponder.
Just like the man-in-the-street Palestinian willingly still finds silent solace under the wings of Hamas, so too New Yorkers, including seemingly clueless Jews, have elected Mamdani.
The man’s political platform and stated policies can only be characterized as grand chutzpah incarnate, yet the mind-fuckers behind his campaign knew it would work. From whence is their Vizier snake charmer magic? Was their two year hostage holding actually a sophisticated, underground Psyc Op research lab?
Finally a re-reading isolated this insight: “Certain religious organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah function as “clubs” that provide social services and mutual insurance to members in exchange for high-cost signals of commitment, including participation in terrorism. The club structure filters out free riders and strengthens in-group ties. In that environment, volunteering for violence is less about a missing paycheck and more about belonging to an exclusive, ideologically charged community.”
That illuminates the parallels in the operative dynamics of Hamas and a street gang in Los Angeles, and a drug cartel in South America. Membership itself provides the prestige and rewards to rise above the communal norm;
it is an elevating ‘exit’ that is more available and accessible than a scholarship. The violence and who it is directed against is a secondary concern providing the playing field and agenda upon which the members compete.
Exploring that theory further on a hunch I Googled the synopsis of the film Paris Is Burning(1990) “… a seminal documentary exploring New York City's 1980s ballroom scene, focusing on Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ communities. The film chronicles marginalized individuals who form "houses" for support and compete in voguing, fashion, and "realness" competitions. It highlights themes of race, poverty, and resilience against systemic oppression.”
That last sentence sounds remarkably familiar doesn’t it? Except here the dueling stilettos don’t have blades, they have rhinestones. Other examples might be sports team rivalries or even competitive academic or corporate intrigues. Think back, wasn’t it for this very same ‘sport’ that the Coliseum was originally erected?
This also helps answer a question I’ve asked myself near the end of every 007 flick I’ve ever seen. Why, as the tide of battle turns and the villain is surely doomed, don’t the henchmen just abandon ship and surrender? After all, their final paycheck will clearly not be in the mail. The answer is, their motivational factor is not the force they are fighting against, it is the cohort they are fighting with.
It seems embarrassingly prosaic to equate the dead at Bondi Beach with the death toll extras on Dr. No’s island. But maybe it will help by cutting the globe’s overarching truly traumatic menace down to manageable size.
MFritz — thank you for the series of three comments. I’m replying to them together because I think we’re largely aligned, and because your through-line is consistent across all three.
Where I agree most strongly: the “poverty causes terrorism” story is usually the wrong frame. The more durable drivers are organizational and social — identity, belonging, status, moral permission, and the recruitment ecology that turns those incentives into action. Your third comment gets at that very well: the “club” logic helps explain why people stay, why they signal commitment, and why the cohort can matter more than any paycheck or even the stated political objective.
My one caution (and it’s mainly about keeping categories clean): I’d resist stretching “terrorism” to cover broad political turbulence or public frustration in the U.S. Terrorism is a specific behavior — deliberate violence against civilians for political ends. But I take your broader point: grievance framing, sharp social cleavages, and status-seeking group dynamics can produce radicalized subcultures and sometimes spill into violence. Those mechanisms travel across contexts, even when the outcomes are very different.
So yes, I think what you’re describing makes sense at the level of mechanism — and naming the mechanism matters. It’s how we avoid misdiagnosing a moral/ideological and organizational problem as a purely economic one, and how we keep responsibility where it belongs: on actors and movements that choose to sanctify or incentivize violence.
I appreciate the careful read and the added analogies — they’re provocative in the best way.
These morons have it completely backwards. If Palestinians weren’t terrorists, they would be working with the Israelis to better their own people. They would be able to share in the wealth and prosperity that is all around them. But they are hateful animals that would rather wallow in their own self-created cesspool than make peace with Israel. And for that, I have no pity for them. May they all rot in hell.
Politics as a ‘Gladiatorial Spectator Sport’ reduces complex factors as causes of dissatisfaction and disagreement, to a simple ‘Us and Them’ narrative. Then, in this degraded idea-environment, terrorism becomes normalised and takes root, because the Darkside of Human Nature ensures that the terrorist Route to Violence is not a long one. The internet has radicalised ordinary people by framing the process of Debate far too simply. This has been nefariously deliberate, partly, by malicious State actors pedalling hate-subliminals, politics-porn and rabbit-holes, sound-bites and eyeball-flicks. The truth however is NOT too hard to release for public discussion and debate. It is neither too hard nor too complex. Nor is it an overwhelming challenge to State Power. Democracy thrives when debate is vigorous. So, best Explain that the Extremists are violent and lethal, and are the route by which murderous psychopaths, wolves in sheep’s clothing, take power and then kill. There is No Freedom under either The Far Right, nor the re-formed Nazi Party here in Europe. Tell the people this, and they will certainly listen.
Great info and analysis. Ideology is fought by education. We cannot manage the Quran or Muslim homes, but we , the West, have failed even trying to preserve our values by educating the young with our power to do so whilst we are still the majority.
Secondly, I believe in deterrence. Israel demolishes the homes that harbored terrorists . Or used to. . Great global condemnation, of course, but since the " global " community has completely discredited itself from having the moral acuity to pass judgment, the West should learn from Israel .Israel took a severe beating in 10/7 for trusting. The West is a sitting duck.
There should be extreme penalties for terrorists that include those that helped them, including families. The miserable shaheeds in their Jihad perhaps don't mind dying, but they would think of their families. We fight a deadly plague and/or a terminal cancer. What does medicine do in such cases? Encourage the plague and feed the cancer for the cancer's benefit?
Where has common-sense gone?
I am afraid we are either facing eradication or a new totalitarian series of European coups . About the US, who knows. We are the nations' new kid on the block still. Jury is still out. But millenarian Europe has been bleeding and decaying for a very long time. Terrorism is a mosquito bite compared with the menace of Islamic legal control of our societies through demographics and our own stupidity .
It's a world wide Muslim religious war. Over 2.5 blacks have been killed by Muslims in Africa over last 20 years Christiana are being killed by muslins all over the world everyday....so please stop with the Palestinians....this is a Muslim world war. Forget the rest
I appreciate your positive attitude. I am a glass half (or more) full guy as well. But now you’re wading into the swamp of international politics and finance. You’re not holding four aces, my friend. I’d hedge my bet a little. I would however share my foxhole with the likes of you.
When terrorists, especially Islamic terrorists, attack, slaughter, rape, decapitate and burn alive innocent men women and children. When they kidnap men, women children and babies, they want to strike terror in the hearts of their victims. Then the flee and hide in civilian dress in hospitals, mosques, schools, UN compounds, homes and behind their women and children to maximize their casualties in case of retaliation by the attacked country.
You can't wage 7th C wars with 21st C laws.
The Rules of Engagement in these conditions must be adapted to such asymmetrical warfare. Especially when the population supporting these terrorists are 💯 behind this heinous, psychopathic, nihilistic behavior.
In such conditions, no mercy should be shown. These terrorists should be hunted down and terminated wherever they are hiding including their overseas leadership. There should be no humanitarian aid until they all surrender or eliminated.
And last but not least, all their families expelled and never allowed to return.
That is the only way to stop the cycle of terror.
Limit, not stop. You will never stop it. That’s magical thinking.
Well, the US stopped the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII with drastic measures. They stopped it. It must be used again to stop the scourge of Islamic terrorism.
There’s a difference between defeating a sovereign state as opposed to “stopping” a world wide philosophy. Can’t be done. Just have to keep limiting their efforts and effects o the rest of us.
True, Nazism still exists all over the world, Islam as well. To control mosquitoes, you need to dry up the swamp. The present swamp is petro-dollars. When the black swamp dries up, so will the petro-dollars and the mosquitoes will vanish.
If Israel was allowed to finish the job, it would happen. It would require hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. It would require eliminating any hope of a Palestine. We had to firebomb city after city in Germany and Japan to pacify them. Israel needs to fight until the Palestinians unconditionally surrender. These third party ceasefires just get in the way.
Just a reminder I urge my friends not to refer to them as “Palestinians” nor to Judea and Samaria as the “West Bank.”
I appreciate the listing of your sources at the end of this sobering essay. All the more troubling that, if accurate, the perpetrators and other rank and file members are educated, relative to their “cause”, that is. They are still ignorant in the broader sense. Gotta keep crippling them at least. The head of the snake will never be severed. The moral world can only hope to limit the damage by utilizing whatever means necessary. Happy Chanukah to you.
The sources were actually cut short during editing for this venue. The original is more robust: https://davidfiresterphd.substack.com/p/terrorism-is-a-choice-not-a-symptom.
I tend to cite in the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) and these are the precise references I provided in the original:
Abadie, Alberto. 2006. “Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism.” American Economic Review 96 (2): 50–56.
Abrahms, Max. 2008. “What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterterrorism Strategy.” International Security 32 (4): 78–105.
———. 2025. “Does Terrorism Succeed? New Lessons from Hamas, the Global Intifada, and Antisemitism in America.” In October 7: The Wars Over Words and Deeds, edited by Asaf Romirowsky and Donna Robinson Divine, 109–125. Newton, MA: Academic Studies Press.
Atran, Scott. 2003. “Genesis of Suicide Terrorism.” Science 299 (5612): 1534–1539.
Benmelech, Efraim, Claude Berrebi, and Esteban F. Klor. 2012. “Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism.” Journal of Politics 74 (1): 113–128.
Berrebi, Claude. 2007. “Evidence about the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism among Palestinians.” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 13 (1): 18–53.
Berman, Eli, and David D. Laitin. 2008. “Religion, Terrorism and Public Goods: Testing the Club Model.” Journal of Public Economics 92 (10–11): 1942–1967.
Blomberg, S. Brock, Gregory D. Hess, and Akila Weerapana. 2004. “Economic Conditions and Terrorism.” European Journal of Political Economy 20 (2): 463–478.
Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan. 2005. “The Quality of Terror.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 515–530.
Crenshaw, Martha. 1981. “The Causes of Terrorism.” Comparative Politics 13 (4): 379–399.
Ehsan, Rakib. 2019. “Does Poverty Cause Terrorism? It’s Complicated.” CapX, May 2.
Firester, David E. 2023. Evolutions in Suicide Bombing: Exploring the Relationship Between the Tactic and Its Application by Non-State Armed Groups Across Various Conflict Zones Over Time. PhD diss., City University of New York, Graduate Center.
———. Forthcoming. “A Target-Centric Approach to Distinguishing Between Terrorism and Guerrilla Warfare.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.
Flatow, Stephen M. 2019. “Poverty Isn’t the Cause of Terrorism, So Let’s Stop Blaming It.” Jewish News Syndicate, April 29.
Gaibulloev, Khusrav, and Todd Sandler. 2023. “Common Myths of Terrorism.” Journal of Economic Surveys 37 (2): 271–301.
Guerin, Cécile, and Zoé Fourel. 2021. “A Snapshot Analysis of Anti-Muslim Mobilisation in France after Terror Attacks.” Vision of Humanity, April 26.
Hassan, Nasra. 2001. “An Arsenal of Believers: Talking to the ‘Human Bombs.’” The New Yorker, November 19.
Krueger, Alan B., and Jitka Maleckova. 2003. “Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17 (4): 119–144.
Kydd, Andrew, and Barbara F. Walter. 2002. “Sabotaging the Peace: The Politics of Extremist Violence.” International Organization 56 (2): 263–296.
McKenzie, Pete, Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa, Adolfo Arranz, and Jitesh Chowdhury. 2025. “‘It Was Dead People Everywhere’: Inside Australia’s Hanukkah Massacre.” Reuters, December 15.
Moran, Matthew. 2017. “Terrorism and the Banlieues: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks in Context.” Modern & Contemporary France 25 (3): 315–32.
Piazza, James A. 2006. “Rooted in Poverty? Terrorism, Poor Economic Development, and Social Cleavages.” Terrorism and Political Violence 18 (1): 159–177.
Rakhamilova, Zina. 2025. “Stop Blaming Israel for Global Antisemitism.” Jerusalem Post, October 7.
Sabri, Amir, and Günther G. Schulze. 2021. “Are Suicide Terrorists Different from ‘Regular Militants’?” Public Choice 188 (1–2): 155–181.
Thank you the expanded list of sources. Kudos to you for a well researched, well written essay.
Thank you.
Truth. Great research.
Hence the Israeli agreement with Hamas on October 6 which liberalized fishing zones and work permits for Gazans to work in Israel.
In the West, terrorists often come from middle class university educated backgrounds. Rarely are they working class. The violence is always against free societies, rarely against repressive ones. You say mental illness doesn’t play a part. Nevertheless, terrorists enjoy violence. They enjoy taking life. You would not want to live anywhere near such people.
Furthermore, terrorists can become sexually aroused by their violence as the rapes of men, women and children on October 7th demonstrate.
By the way, billions of dollars have flowed in to ‘Palestinian’ areas. It does bugger all to stop terrorists.
The biggest cause of terrorism is ISLAM by far.
And don’t forget the money that went into the 1,000 kilometers or 600 miles of tunnels Hamas build to fight Israel.
I pray you are right. I believe I know who is listening to me. But I doubt they will listen to Him. Because they think they already are.
The factual revelations of this analysis are pointed towards actual Islamist terrorists. They were indoctrinated and recruited within their Muslim communities and cultures — and it is there that the ‘poverty’ supposition was proven false by Dr. David Firester’s research and statistics.
However, there is another direction in which to apply the foundational suppositions of the study — whether poverty recruits terrorists — that might explain much of the illogical political and sociological winds buffeting us here in the USA for the last decades.
Why has affordability recently emerged as the primary drag on Republican popularity? Despite the massive foreign investments being brought in; the reduction in drug prices Trump extorted from pharma; the erratic but ultimate equalization of tariffs, Doge, tax modifications, insurance industry coercion and many other of Trump’s unprecedented fiscal programs are working, it seems logical, towards improving personal finances. Only it just takes time.
But social-media addled Americans are impatient if not confused or totally shortsighted. They are incredibly uncomfortable living pay check to pay check and feeling impoverished. They are actually the type of poor people the study supposed were prime terrorist recruitment prospects.
Here’s another factor your research calls out. In the last decades, the persistent insistence
to continually identify perceived marginalized sectors of our society, be they Me Too, BLM, illegals, trans, white privilege, Jews, the rich, the homeless, the cast of the Epstein files, and next month’s favorite flavor of friend or foe. As you said: “…the most important drivers are state repression and sharp social cleavages: ethnic, religious, or ideological divides that terrorist organizations can exploit.”
Ergo, what is in fact happening to the world’s Westerners, mainly youth — they are responding to the current media and political party ‘affordability’ input by adopting the hate blaming and violence that you originally supposed would radicalize Muslims. Your theory was right, except misplaced: it’s doing it to Americans! Which makes sense because, when you get down to it, the social scientists hypothesizing in the first place, are products of Western culture themselves.
Please tell me Dr. Firester, does what I’m saying make some sense to you? And if it does, will identifying the diabolical process help root it out at its source?
I gave it a little more thought and identified another misdirected dissonance corollary you to ponder.
Just like the man-in-the-street Palestinian willingly still finds silent solace under the wings of Hamas, so too New Yorkers, including seemingly clueless Jews, have elected Mamdani.
The man’s political platform and stated policies can only be characterized as grand chutzpah incarnate, yet the mind-fuckers behind his campaign knew it would work. From whence is their Vizier snake charmer magic? Was their two year hostage holding actually a sophisticated, underground Psyc Op research lab?
Finally a re-reading isolated this insight: “Certain religious organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah function as “clubs” that provide social services and mutual insurance to members in exchange for high-cost signals of commitment, including participation in terrorism. The club structure filters out free riders and strengthens in-group ties. In that environment, volunteering for violence is less about a missing paycheck and more about belonging to an exclusive, ideologically charged community.”
That illuminates the parallels in the operative dynamics of Hamas and a street gang in Los Angeles, and a drug cartel in South America. Membership itself provides the prestige and rewards to rise above the communal norm;
it is an elevating ‘exit’ that is more available and accessible than a scholarship. The violence and who it is directed against is a secondary concern providing the playing field and agenda upon which the members compete.
Exploring that theory further on a hunch I Googled the synopsis of the film Paris Is Burning(1990) “… a seminal documentary exploring New York City's 1980s ballroom scene, focusing on Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ communities. The film chronicles marginalized individuals who form "houses" for support and compete in voguing, fashion, and "realness" competitions. It highlights themes of race, poverty, and resilience against systemic oppression.”
That last sentence sounds remarkably familiar doesn’t it? Except here the dueling stilettos don’t have blades, they have rhinestones. Other examples might be sports team rivalries or even competitive academic or corporate intrigues. Think back, wasn’t it for this very same ‘sport’ that the Coliseum was originally erected?
This also helps answer a question I’ve asked myself near the end of every 007 flick I’ve ever seen. Why, as the tide of battle turns and the villain is surely doomed, don’t the henchmen just abandon ship and surrender? After all, their final paycheck will clearly not be in the mail. The answer is, their motivational factor is not the force they are fighting against, it is the cohort they are fighting with.
It seems embarrassingly prosaic to equate the dead at Bondi Beach with the death toll extras on Dr. No’s island. But maybe it will help by cutting the globe’s overarching truly traumatic menace down to manageable size.
MFritz — thank you for the series of three comments. I’m replying to them together because I think we’re largely aligned, and because your through-line is consistent across all three.
Where I agree most strongly: the “poverty causes terrorism” story is usually the wrong frame. The more durable drivers are organizational and social — identity, belonging, status, moral permission, and the recruitment ecology that turns those incentives into action. Your third comment gets at that very well: the “club” logic helps explain why people stay, why they signal commitment, and why the cohort can matter more than any paycheck or even the stated political objective.
My one caution (and it’s mainly about keeping categories clean): I’d resist stretching “terrorism” to cover broad political turbulence or public frustration in the U.S. Terrorism is a specific behavior — deliberate violence against civilians for political ends. But I take your broader point: grievance framing, sharp social cleavages, and status-seeking group dynamics can produce radicalized subcultures and sometimes spill into violence. Those mechanisms travel across contexts, even when the outcomes are very different.
So yes, I think what you’re describing makes sense at the level of mechanism — and naming the mechanism matters. It’s how we avoid misdiagnosing a moral/ideological and organizational problem as a purely economic one, and how we keep responsibility where it belongs: on actors and movements that choose to sanctify or incentivize violence.
I appreciate the careful read and the added analogies — they’re provocative in the best way.
These morons have it completely backwards. If Palestinians weren’t terrorists, they would be working with the Israelis to better their own people. They would be able to share in the wealth and prosperity that is all around them. But they are hateful animals that would rather wallow in their own self-created cesspool than make peace with Israel. And for that, I have no pity for them. May they all rot in hell.
Politics as a ‘Gladiatorial Spectator Sport’ reduces complex factors as causes of dissatisfaction and disagreement, to a simple ‘Us and Them’ narrative. Then, in this degraded idea-environment, terrorism becomes normalised and takes root, because the Darkside of Human Nature ensures that the terrorist Route to Violence is not a long one. The internet has radicalised ordinary people by framing the process of Debate far too simply. This has been nefariously deliberate, partly, by malicious State actors pedalling hate-subliminals, politics-porn and rabbit-holes, sound-bites and eyeball-flicks. The truth however is NOT too hard to release for public discussion and debate. It is neither too hard nor too complex. Nor is it an overwhelming challenge to State Power. Democracy thrives when debate is vigorous. So, best Explain that the Extremists are violent and lethal, and are the route by which murderous psychopaths, wolves in sheep’s clothing, take power and then kill. There is No Freedom under either The Far Right, nor the re-formed Nazi Party here in Europe. Tell the people this, and they will certainly listen.
Great info and analysis. Ideology is fought by education. We cannot manage the Quran or Muslim homes, but we , the West, have failed even trying to preserve our values by educating the young with our power to do so whilst we are still the majority.
Secondly, I believe in deterrence. Israel demolishes the homes that harbored terrorists . Or used to. . Great global condemnation, of course, but since the " global " community has completely discredited itself from having the moral acuity to pass judgment, the West should learn from Israel .Israel took a severe beating in 10/7 for trusting. The West is a sitting duck.
There should be extreme penalties for terrorists that include those that helped them, including families. The miserable shaheeds in their Jihad perhaps don't mind dying, but they would think of their families. We fight a deadly plague and/or a terminal cancer. What does medicine do in such cases? Encourage the plague and feed the cancer for the cancer's benefit?
Where has common-sense gone?
I am afraid we are either facing eradication or a new totalitarian series of European coups . About the US, who knows. We are the nations' new kid on the block still. Jury is still out. But millenarian Europe has been bleeding and decaying for a very long time. Terrorism is a mosquito bite compared with the menace of Islamic legal control of our societies through demographics and our own stupidity .
It's a world wide Muslim religious war. Over 2.5 blacks have been killed by Muslims in Africa over last 20 years Christiana are being killed by muslins all over the world everyday....so please stop with the Palestinians....this is a Muslim world war. Forget the rest
I appreciate your positive attitude. I am a glass half (or more) full guy as well. But now you’re wading into the swamp of international politics and finance. You’re not holding four aces, my friend. I’d hedge my bet a little. I would however share my foxhole with the likes of you.