The effect of political violence on religiosity

Abstract

This paper studies how politically motivated violence associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wider Arab-Israeli conflict affects religiosity among Jews and Muslims in Israel. In order to explore this relationship I link data from the Israeli Social Surveys to information on Israeli conflict-related fatalities by date and location of survey interviews. The analysis, which covers the period 2002–2010, yields robust evidence that violence makes both Jewish and Muslim Israelis self-identify as more religious.