Israelis' Moral Judgments of Government Aggression and Violations of Human Rights: Is Democracy Under Siege?

Abstract

This article presents the attitudes of Israeli citizens concerning government aggression andviolations of human rights, highlighting moral dimensions of these views, and illuminates howprotracted Middle Eastern confl ict shades the respondents’ beliefs and moral judgments.Results focus specifi cally on the ramifi cations of the protracted Israeli – Palestinian confl ict onIsraelis’ moral judgments of government aggression and are based on an international surveythat was administered to people from multiple countries, including 155 Israelis. Most respondentsasserted the importance of supporting governments in the time of war but also endorsedthe right of citizens to protest against war. The dominant reaction to a hypothetical event ofother nation’s violence toward one’s country was hatred, rage, and desire for retribution.Israelis’ construal of government aggression seems to refl ect a predominantly ethnocentricutilitarianism moral orientation.