Arthur Hertzberg Quotes

Terrorism really flourishes in areas of poverty, despair and hopelessness, where people see no future

When a person is humiliated, when his rights are being violated, and he does not have the proper education, naturally he gravitates toward terrorism.

You've got to be pretty hopeless to become a suicide bomber.

As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress.

Poverty does not make people terrorists, but terrorists can exploit the frustration it creates and use it as a breeding-ground for violent ideas.

There are no automatic links between poverty and terrorism. Among millions of poor people in the world, only a few turn to terrorism.

Terrorism is partly linked to people who have no jobs in Pakistan.

Poverty does not cause violence and terrorism. Lack of education does not cause terrorism.

It is futile to expect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent and gross.

You can see what happens when people don't feel they have a chance. You can see the ramifications of that.

Corruption is rife in the Muslim world, and when it is coupled with the marginalization of religion, it manifests itself as frustration and becomes a fertile recruiting ground for extremism.

I truly believe that fundamentalism stems from unemployment. A man without a job is desperate; he doesn't want to live anyway.

Many of the young people living in inner-city America don't see themselves - I mean, they even talk about things like death and dying. And there's a tremendous loss of hope. And of all the things to lose, I think nothing is worse or more difficult to overcome than the loss of hope.

Violence is good for those who have nothing to lose.

The reason that the World Trade Center got hit is because there are a lot of people living in abject poverty out there who don't have any hope for a better life.

The weapon of suicide bombing is so desperate that you aren't even left with the possibility of taking revenge or punishing anyone; the terrorist is killed along with his victims, his blood mixing with theirs.

If you are starving and young and in search of answers as to why your life is so difficult, fundamentalism can be alluring. We know this for a fact because former members of Boko Haram have admitted it: They offer impressionable young people money and the promise of food, while the group's mentors twist their minds with fanaticism.

The familiar mood that awaits the sensitive young who are poor and dispossessed is a mood of sharp and painful inferiority, of violently angry tensions, of desperate and overwhelming longings.

Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.

What causes terrorism is disrespect, a lack of justice, and poverty.

It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.

The poor prey on one another because their lives offer no hope and communicate the tragic message to these human beings that they have no possibility to attain a decent standard of living.

I think what Osama bin Laden does is to take the fact that some peoples lack hope and lack opportunity, and twist it to his own ends.

Poverty makes you sad as well as wise.

It is development, not poverty, that causes upheaval and terrorism.