Good News: Era of Suicide Bombings is Over! (as of May 2005)

The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group has the following press release from May 28, 2005:

Reality Checkpoint: An End to the Culture of Death?

As reported by Haaretz on May 30th, PA President Mahmoud Abbas believes the era of suicide bombing to be over (Haaretz, Article 1190761). Considering the decrease in successful suicide attacks in recent years, his assumption is a reasonable one to make. However, it is critical to analyze the cause of this decrease. Two main factors influence the occurrence of suicide attacks: inability on the Israeli side to prevent them, and desire on the Palestinian side to commit such attacks.

Israeli ability to deter attacks has improved significantly since the peak of suicide bombings in 2002. Soft targets have become hard and casualty numbers have decreased. As a result, suicide bombing has become a less opportunistic tactic. While this decrease in suicide bombings is a welcome change, it is irresponsible to conclude that violent intentions have decreased altogether.

Mahmoud Abbas went on to say that, “…we stopped the culture of violence and the Palestinian people have started looking at it as something that should be condemned.” While PHRMG agrees that people have begun to condemn these activities, PHRMG disagrees that the culture of violence has been stopped.

The press release seems to follow the approved Abbas algorithm for judging when terrorism is to be condemned--when it does not work: "Considering the decrease in successful suicide attacks in recent years, his assumption is a reasonable one to make." So this end of an era is judged by the drop in the number of civilians that are successfully killed and maimed, as opposed to the drop in the actual number of attempts.

Two years, PHRMG admits that suicide bombings have not really decreased and last week--on September 11th, no less--came out with a press release about a new paper delineating what motivates suicide bombers. They now admit that poverty is not the cause, but that is as far as they will go:

This paper conclusively eliminates numerous specious correlations and stereotypes surrounding SAers – including that of being psychologically disturbed, mentally incompetent, poverty-stricken, and driven by religious fervor. We have shown that an insightful analysis portrays the average SAer as a rational actor living in an irrational world, and thus susceptible to modification. Indeed, SAers appear to be driven by strong nationalistic zeal, systematic oppression by a population whose culture is significantly different from their own, an ensuing feeling of helplessness and despair, a devout hatred for a neighboring tangibly occupying force, and a false assurance by organizations as well as a manipulation of religious scriptures to more easily guide such individuals towards imminent self-destruction…

They do admit that poverty is not a factor, although they overlook such factors as the corruption of the Palestinian leaders and the active encouragement of suicide bombing and terrorist attacks--starting with the children.

At least they are doing more than Abbas to publicly oppose the suicide bombing--not that that is such a high bar to pass over.

Hat tip [IMRA]

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinians and Suicide Bombers.