Are terrorists acting rationally?
Explain and evaluate Hoffman assertion that terrorists ordinarily act rationally.
The terrorist always fights against a better-armed foe. In order to go up against such an enemy, there must be undying fervor and burning desire within the fighter. The training starts from birth. The child is taught to dehmanize the enemy, and that killing them is part of the natural order. Hoffman calls this an "inverted sense of normality" and it is instilled throughout society.
[The Palestinians] have fostered an inverted sense of
normality throughout much of Palestinian society whereby
suicide -- the senseless taking of one's life, an act that is
usually negatively regarded as aberrant, if not abnormal --
becomes accepted and commonplace, with demonstrably
positive connotations. This view is facilitated through the
terrorist organizations' attendant efforts to attach a positive
social imprimatur to the suicide terrorist act (157).
By ascribing a heavenly reward for destroying the earthly body, the jihadist leaders instill in the youth the moral, social, and religious fervor necessary to kill oneself for the cause. Videos and cartoons glorifying suicide operations fill the airwaves (158-9); tangible rewards like candy and goodies in the streets upon news of suicide attacks fill the mind with a clear message (158). Like a Pavlovian experiment, jihadists are trained to respond positively to the ultimate negative stimulus, suicide.
Suicide operations are justified by some Muslim clerical authorities. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi declared on Palestinian TV, "Anyone who does not attain martyrdom in these days should wake in the middle of the night and say: 'My God, why have you deprived me of martyrdom for your sake?' For the martyr lives next to Allah" (158). Islamic scholars proclaim the beauty of the paradise (and the virgins) that the suicide rewards (159-63). So of course people who grow up and are surrounded by this environment will be coerced to believing this way is right.
A terrorist, steeped in this learning and brainwashing day after day, finally culminates his training by driving their explosive-laden van into a group of Jews, is acting perfectly rationally. He believes his acts to be what Allah desires and expects of him. He understands the reward that awaits not only him but 70 of his family members, on whose behalf he may one day intercede (163). Deep in his heart he feels what he does will bring the death and ultimate overthrow of American infidels and Zionist pigs. The ultimate tragedy of terrorism is that its purveyors really do believe what they do is right. That makes them all the more dangerous.
Source: Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Columbia University Press, New York. 2006 (Revised). ISBN 0231126999. (paperback)