In her description of a brief visit, EU high representative for Foreign Affairs Policy Catherine Ashton renders a heart wrenching snapshot of the miserable life in the besieged Gaza strip,. But along with her admirable empathy, Ashton conveys misleading truisms. That “extremism grows in rubble and refugee camps” is conjecture, not proven fact. While males from lower socioeconomic strata are in fact more likely to engage in violent crime, no such linkage has ever been demonstrated for poor nations and war. Europe’s two world wars were not because of poverty. Neither did destitution prompt the United States to invade Iraq or Afghanistan, nor Russia to attack Chechnya or Ossetia. In fact, it has not been a cause for any of the numerous wars and struggles in the Middle East.

In the same vain, extremism need not necessarily spring out of refugee camps: more than half of Israel's population is made up of the descendants of refugees or survivors of the Holocaust, a crime cruel beyond comparison to the indubitably harsh living conditions in Gaza. Yet, the majority of Israelis are neither extremists nor violent. Even the innocent assumption that for economies to “grow, people to prosper and children to be educated … we need peace in the Middle East” is contradicted by Ashton’s very own words. Israel has been involved in the very same wars as the Arab world and the Palestinians, but, in Ashton’s own words, it is a prospering “21st century country”. In contrast, Mali lives in peace with its neighbors, but is one of the poorest nations on earth. Not even the seemingly self evident explanation, that military occupation breeds violence should be accepted without scrutiny. Tibet is just as occupied as Palestine, but its citizens abhor violence or terrorism.

Ashton’s article is a naive and misled reading of historical context, that does not bode well for Europe's well -intentioned attempt to advance peace in the Middle East. Poverty does not breed hatred, ideology does. Normative citizens turn into terrorists when murder of civilians becomes socially acceptable, or even desriable. Refugee camps do not breed extremism, but militant preachers who reject any peaceful solution of coexistence do. Peace does not bring about prosperity, but good governance, an absence of corruption and nepotism, a sense of belonging, entrepreneurship, education, and, arguably, at least a certain amount of civil rights and freedom.

To bring peace to the Middle East, pitying the Palestinians and blaming Israel will not suffice. Such a far reaching and noble goal as peace will only be achieved when much more is done, and understood, than Ashton seems to fathom.