| Talkback | |
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Title: | #12 Yishai - It`s not an either-or proposition | |||
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| Name: | Elihu | | |||
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| City: | Efrat | State: | Israel | | |
| Yishai, I do get it. You have just been victim of a logical fallacy. Let me explain why I repeat my caution about using the information to draw positive inferences rather than negative ones. The outbreak of violence, the paper says, cannot be blamed on deteriorating economic conditions. Yes. ‘Hizbullah members 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. Though the data are less extensive, the authors found a positive link between taking part in "terrorism" and educational attainment.’ However, this does not mean that education and prosperity are either necessary nor sufficient conditions for Arab terrorism. The study concludes: "Any connection between poverty, education and terrorism is indirect and probably quite weak".’ Your taking the further logical step - that education and better living conditions for Lebanese and Palestinians actually lead to terrorism - is unwarranted. In this context, pay close attention to another observation of the study: ‘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.’ Would you use this factoid to justify the position that we could we just avoid the whole conflict by putting everyone here back into the Stone Age? Of course not. If the kids are Fulbright Scholars they are already plenty educated. That does not mean they should automatically be adjudged a security risk and refused the opportunity to mingle with other bright kids –Jewish ones maybe. You can’t seriously be making the argument that every educated Palestinian is a security risk and that but for their education they would not be a security risk. |
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