cthulhu,
The study you referenced only examines suicide attacks – not terrorist attacks. Suicide attacks only constitute something like 5% of all terrorist attacks from around 1980, so they are small by comparison.
Suicide attacks only became more prevalent again from then to the present day, and motivation to do so has ranged from nationalism to Islamic fundamentalism. Drawling a line between the two can be difficult. Scott Atran and the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism would both dispute aspects of Pape’s findings, but all seem to agree that, since 2004, the overwhelming majority of suicide attacks have been Islamist.
In terms of terrorist attacks, the evidence against Islamists is even more damning.
What 95 percent of all suicide attacks have in common, since 1980, is not religion, but a specific strategic motivation to respond to a military intervention, often specifically a military occupation, of territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly. From Lebanon and the West Bank in the 80s and 90s, to Iraq and Afghanistan, and up through the Paris suicide attacks we’ve just experienced in the last days, military intervention—and specifically when the military intervention is occupying territory—that’s what prompts suicide terrorism more than anything else.
What does Lebanon, the West Bank (The Holy Land), Afghanistan and Iraq really have to do with? Religion - either clear differences between faiths (Christianity, Judaism, Islam), or particular schisms within Islam itself(Sunni, Shia).
To take the best example, The Lebanese Civil War was all about multi-religious conflict, dragging Israel and Syria into it in the process. Lebanon has many different religions and groups. The more recent Lebanon War was also the Israeli-Hezbollah War. The current conflict in Lebanon concerns Hezbollah again, ISIL and al-Nusra Front.
We could show similar examples with Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which, however, have significant non-Islamic minorities. The West Bank is also an obvious religious conflict. There is also the issue that almost every Islamic country wants Israel destroyed, simply because they refuse to recognise its existence.
In the West, we mostly practise secularism which keeps religion out of our daily lives should we wish to do so. (THANK GOD
) This is what Ataturk also aimed for in Turkey. Throughout much of the Middle East and beyond, into the Islamic states further south and east and west, it is mostly a part of your daily life – whether you want it or not. That is one of the key differences here. Many Western analysts don't fully appreciate this.
