This paper studies the dynamics of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict since the outbreak of the Second (or "Al-Aqsa") Intifada in September 2000, during which more than 3,300 Palestinians and more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed. The conflict has followed an uneven pattern, with periods of high levels of violence and periods of relative calm. Using data on the number of deaths occurring each day between September 2000 and January 2005, we estimate reaction functions for both Israelis and Palestinians and find evidence of unidirectional Granger causality from Palestinian violence to Israeli violence, but not vice versa. This finding is consistent whether we look only at the incidence of fatalities or whether we look at the level of fatalities, and is robust to the specification of the lag structure and the level of time aggregation. We find little evidence that violence on either side has a direct deterrent or incapacitation effect. We do find, however, that successful assassination attempts do reduce the number of subsequent Israeli fatalities. We conclude that, despite the popular perception that Palestinians and Israelis are engaged in "tit-for-tat" violence, there is no evidence to support that notion.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
1808.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Alberto AbadĂe & Javier Gardeazábal, 2005.
"Terrorism and the World Economy,"
DFAEII Working Papers
200519, University of the Basque Country - Department of Foundations of Economic Analysis II.
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