Terror, Resource Gains and Exclusionist Political Attitudes among New Immigrants and Veteran Israelis

Abstract

This study analyses the antecedents of exclusionist political attitudes towards Palestinian citizens of Israel among Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union in comparison to Old Jewish Israelis (OJI). A large-scale study of exclusionist political attitudes was conducted in the face of ongoing terrorism in Israel through telephone surveys carried out in September 2003 with 641 OJI and 131 immigrants. The main goal of the survey was to estimate the influence of perceived loss and gain of resources—as a consequence of terror—on attitudes towards Palestinian Israelis, while controlling for other relevant predictors of exclusionism—i.e. authoritarianism or threat perception. Findings obtained via interaction analyses and structural equation modelling show that a) immigrants display higher levels of exclusionist political attitudes towards Palestinian citizens of Israel than OJI; b) loss of resources, authoritarianism, and hawkish (rightist) worldviews predict exclusionist political attitudes among both immigrants and non-immigrants; c) failure to undergo post-traumatic growth (resource gain) in response to terrorism (e.g. finding meaning in life, becoming closer to others) is a significant predictor of exclusionist political attitudes only among immigrants.

Keywords:

• Ethnic Relations
• Intolerance
• Israel
• Arabs
• Immigration
• Terror

Notes

1. In Israel the relation between religiosity and exclusionism towards PIs is amplified by the symbiotic connection between the nationalistic and the religious dimensions of Judaism (Liebman and Don-Yehiya 1983).

2. Status inconsistency frequently occurs following immigration when resources such as social or cultural skills, prior employment experiences and educational background do not translate into jobs commensurate with actual experience and training (Ong and Azores 1994). Due to discrimination, lack of language proficiency and different occupational licensing standards, many immigrants experience downward mobility when they emigrate, often manifested in either un- or underemployment, or even in social and cultural isolation (Warren 1970)

3. This argument is viable for four out of the six election campaigns in which NJIs took part. As for the other two elections (1992, 1999), the leftist candidate (Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak respectively) was perceived as a ‘strong leader’ or army hero, and hence the voting pattern of NJI was more balanced (for a more elaborate analysis of NJI voting patterns see Horowitz 2003). Other explanations for the provisional support of large groups of immigrants for leftist candidates are based upon their major disappointment with the absorption policy of right-wing ministers (Gitelman 1995) and their espousal of social-democratic solutions for their socio-economic problems (Horowitz 2003).

4. Following the results of the 4-step multiple regressions, and given existing theories and findings from other studies, we have also tested for the possible intermediary role of either authoritarianism or political ideology, although they were not part of our hypotheses. The results show that the effect of resource gain may be reduced when either factor is introduced as a possible mediator. A complete report of this analysis is available upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eran Halperin

Eran Halperin is Assistant Professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, Herzlija, Israel

Daphna Canetti

Daphna Canetti is Visiting Professor at the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University

Stevan E. Hobfoll

Stevan Hobfall is Professor of Applied Psychology at Kent State University

Robert J. Johnson

Robert Johnson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Miami