Does suicide bombing pay?
Are suicide bombers “crazy?” Or are they making rational strategic choices designed to achieve certain goals? Neither conventional interpretation is correct in the case of the second intifada, according to provocative new research from University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym. Contrary to what most academic research has shown, says Brym, “revenge and retaliation seem to be the principal animus driving this suicide bombing campaign. We see this when we examine when attacks occur, what people say about why they’re taking place and when we look at the actual costs and benefits gained.” Brym and his research team created a database of collective violence events that occurred during the second intifada, the term generally used to describe the Palestinian uprising against Israel that began in the fall of 2000. The team collected data on 138 attacks from existing databases, Hebrew and Arabic newspapers and the New York Times. They then mined the database for 128 variables, examin
