LONDON: Terrorism has little or nothing to do with economics, according to a new analysis of the social background of Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

After examining the income and education of Palestinian suicide bombers and Israelis implicated in civilian assassinations and attacks, the academic study concludes “any connection between poverty, education and terrorism is indirect and probably quite weak”.

The report, entitled ‘Education, poverty, political violence and terrorism, is there a causal connection?’, is from the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is independent and highly respected for its quantitative work in economic and social policy.

Alan Kreuger of Princeton University and Jitka Maleckova of Charles University in Prague examined the jobs, educational level and family circumstances of 129 Hezbollah militants killed in operations against Israel during th the past 20 years.

Compared with the Lebanese population as a whole, Hezbollah personnel were less likely to come from poor families and were significantly more likely to have completed secondary education.

A similar pattern holds for Palestinian suicide bombers. Although data is less extensive, the authors found a positive link between taking part in “terrorism” and educational attainment.

Israeli citizens engaged in bombing and assassination attempts in the occupied territories in recent years have also tended to be drawn from better-off backgrounds, and have often been highly educated.

The study also looked at the timing of past upsurges in violence in the middle east and sought to relate them to cycles of economic growth.

No correlation was found between participation in violence and economic depression; instead violence seems to have increased when local economic conditions were getting better.

The latest intifida started when economic optimism among Palestinians was rising and after a period during which education levels among young Palestinians had risen remarkably. Thus the latest outbreak of violence, the paper says, cannot be blamed on deteriorating economic conditions.

Drawing on opinion polls by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research based in Ramallah, the academics note support for violent action against Israel including suicide bombing does not vary much according to social background. Well educated and affluent Palestinians are as likely to back attacks as the unemployed and poor.

“If poverty were the wellspring of support for terrorism or politically motivated violence, one would have expected the unemployed to be more supportive of armed attacks than merchants and professionals, not less,” the study says.

It goes on to say drawing a connection between poverty and terrorism could inhibit help for poor countries.

The international aid community, associating violence and poverty, “may lose interest in providing support to developing nations when the imminent threat of terrorism recedes”, it concludes.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.