Terrorism and Political Tolerance toward “Fellow Travelers”

Abstract

How does terrorism influence citizens’ willingness to deny basic liberties to domestic groups alleged to be “fellow travelers” of the perpetrators of terrorism? Based on intergroup threat theory and social identity theory, we hypothesize that political intolerance toward fellow traveler groups is determined by three factors: (1) the level of terrorism, (2) the degree to which domestic outgroups are alleged to be demographically or politically associated with terrorist groups, and (3) whether individuals identify strongly with the political Right. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that higher levels of terrorism in Israel over a thirty-year period produce a “diffusion of political intolerance” among Israeli Jews on the Right that extends to domestic groups distant from the perpetrators of terrorism. Our findings have important implications for the study of terrorism, democracy, and political tolerance.

Keywords

political tolerance terrorism Israel threat political identity

How does terrorism influence citizens’ willingness to extend basic liberties to disliked domestic groups presumed to be “fellow travelers” of the perpetrators of terrorism? Can repeated terror attacks increase political intolerance toward domestic groups either because they happen to share a common national or religious background with terrorist groups or because they are sympathetic to domestic groups associated with terrorists? There are all too many historical examples of threats from war or terrorism stoking public support for repressing domestic groups who pose little objective threat themselves. In the U.S., the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII; the repression of American communists and other “fellow travelers” during the McCarthy “Red Scare” of the 1950s (Gibson 1988; Stouffer 1955); and the widespread intolerance and profiling of American Arabs and Muslims after 9/11 (e.g., Huddy et al. 2005; Jamal 2008) are striking examples. How far does intolerance travel? Can terror attacks create a diffusion of political intolerance toward diverse fellow traveler groups distant from the actual perpetrators of violence?

During the McCarthy era, Stouffer (1955) and others used the term “fellow travelers” to refer to groups on the left (e.g., socialists, atheists, and pacifists) that were alleged by anti-communists to be philosophically supportive of communism but had no formal association with the US Communist Party. Guided by social identity theory, we extend the term to indicate domestic outgroups who, by dint of their sociological makeup (i.e., their national, religious, or ethnic heritage), as well as their political sympathies, are alleged to be supportive of terrorists.¹ Thus, instead of focusing narrowly on the alleged philosophical or ideological sympathies of fellow travelers, as Stouffer and others did, we focus on the social and emotional (i.e., expressive) foundations of how reactions to terrorism lead political identity groups to target fellow travelers with political intolerance.

Intolerance toward fellow traveler groups is clearly a global concern, particularly for democracies facing repeated attacks. Certainly, Kurdish citizens of Turkey, Arab citizens of Israel, Kashmiri citizens of India, and Muslim citizens of several Western countries have all been subjected to increased surveillance and intolerance after attacks by terrorist groups sharing a common ethnic background. Indeed, the terror attacks of 2015–2017 in Europe and the U.S. prompted populist presidential candidates like Marine Le Pen in France and Donald Trump in the U.S. to propose sweeping measures targeting the civil liberties of Muslims.2

Based on intergroup threat theory and social identity theory, we hypothesize that intolerance toward fellow traveler groups is determined by three factors: (1) the level of terrorism, (2) the degree to which domestic outgroups are demographically or politically associated with terrorist groups, and (3) whether individuals identify strongly with the political Right. To test our hypotheses, we turn to Israel to examine how attacks primarily by Palestinians in the occupied territories erode tolerance among Israel’s Jewish citizens toward its Arab citizens and Arab political groups,³ as well as sympathetic Jewish political groups. As we argue below, our study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, while prior studies assess tolerance after terror attacks in a single survey cross-section (e.g., Huddy et al. 2005), a short-term panel (e.g., Canetti-Nisim et al. 2009) or an experiment (e.g., Gadarian 2010), our study combines terrorism data with survey data on tolerance over a thirty-year period, allowing us to determine whether fluctuations in terrorism precipitate intolerance toward several groups of fellow travelers not involved in terrorism.

Second, and more important, we can assess how far intolerance travels after repeated terror attacks. We test the expectation derived from social identity theory that when terror attacks increase, conditions are ripe for a “diffusion of intolerance” toward fellow traveler groups, particularly among individuals who identify with the political Right. As we point out below, ours is the first study of how, over an extended period of time, chronic terrorism can lead to a diffusion of intolerance toward fellow traveler groups.

Finally, our use of social identity theory helps us answer a critical political question: Who favors repressing whom? As we elaborate below, our theory explains how perceived threat from chronic terrorism increases the intolerance of political identity groups, usually on the Right, toward groups of fellow travelers, usually associated ethnic minorities and their political sympathizers.

Determining how terrorism impacts tolerance toward fellow travelers is a critical question for democracies. Global terror attacks have skyrocketed since 9/11 (Institute of Economics and Peace 2015) and they pose a particular threat to democracies (e.g., Wilson and Piazza 2013). A common goal of terrorists is to strike fear into the hearts of citizens by killing civilians; and as Huddy et al. (2005, 594) remind us, “one of the most pervasive and powerful effects of threat is to increase intolerance, prejudice, ethnocentrism and xenophobia….” Thus, in the aftermath of terror attacks, support for political tolerance and minority rights—two bedrock values in liberal democracies—is likely to suffer as laws are often passed that compromise democratic values and practices for years to come (Merolla and Zechmeister 2009). And because Islamic extremist groups have been a major source of terrorism in many other countries as well as Israel, intolerance toward domestic Muslim and Arab citizens is a problem throughout the world (e.g., Hanes and Machin 2014; Jamal 2008; Huddy et al. 2005).

The Israeli Case

In addition to studying fluctuations in terrorism over a 30-year period, from 1980 to 2011, perpetrated largely by Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, we take advantage of a unique collection of 18 Israeli surveys tracking political tolerance of Israeli Jews over the same turbulent period. Moreover, we capture political intolerance toward three domestic fellow traveler groups that are distant from the actual perpetrators of terrorism: two disliked political groups consisting of Israeli Arab groups (e.g., the Islamic Movement, Balad) and Jewish leftist groups (e.g., Peace Now, Meretz), as well as the broad social group of the Arab citizens of Israel. The three distinct groups provide important leverage for assessing whether higher levels of terrorism contribute to a diffusion of intolerance toward fellow travelers.

The Israeli case thus provides a real-life laboratory for studying whether terror attacks depress political tolerance toward domestic fellow traveler groups. While Jews constitute a large majority (75%) in Israel, Arab or Palestinian citizens comprise about 20% of the population. Although demographic (i.e., national, religious, and language) and political differences divide Israeli Arabs and Jews, Arab citizens by and large do not pose a security risk to the state. Israeli Arabs regularly express support for the Palestinian side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the vast majority of Arab citizens have not operated against the state and have not been involved in terrorism (Smooha 2017, chap. 5; Peleg and Waxman 2011).⁴ For their part, Jewish leftist groups sympathize with the political goals of Israeli Arabs for equal treatment within Israel and for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories (i.e., the two-state solution).

We also note that while Israel’s experience with terrorism is exceptional, it is certainly not unique among democracies in the world, in terms of both the number of attacks and the fact that many of the most targeted democracies hosted minority populations with the same demographic profile as the perpetrators of attacks.⁵ Thus, the political and security context of Israel provides an especially useful setting for determining whether terrorism contributes to a diffusion of intolerance toward fellow traveler groups.

Threat, Identity, and Tolerance toward Fellow Travelers

Defined as a willingness to extend basic civil liberties to disliked domestic groups, political tolerance (Sullivan, Piereson, and Marcus 1982) is a judgment that, by its very nature, is heavily influenced by threat from outgroups and ingroup identities. Theories of intergroup threat and social identity are therefore well suited for predicting how ingroup identities combine with outgroup characteristics to influence tolerance toward fellow travelers.

In their revised “intergroup threat theory,” Stephan, Ybarra, and Morrison (2016) argue that there are two basic types of intergroup threats—realistic threats from outgroups perceived to pose physical, political or material harm to the ingroup, and symbolic threats from outgroups seen to challenge the ingroup’s values, beliefs, and customs. Existential (i.e., realistic) threats clearly stand out as powerful motivators of intolerance (e.g., Huddy et al. 2002). In fact, as Stephan, Ybarra, and Morrison (2016) point out, because realistic threats risk the destruction of the very ingroup its members hold dear, ingroups are inclined to greatly exaggerate threats from outgroups.

Thus, high levels of terrorist threat make it likely that associated domestic groups will become convenient targets for derogation and intolerance. Consistent with intergroup threat theory, a major finding from several studies is that threat from terrorism—whether measured in a survey (e.g., Huddy et al. 2005), manipulated in an experiment (e.g., Merolla and Zechmeister 2009) or observed in a natural setting (e.g., Peffley, Hutchison, and Shamir 2015)—is a robust predictor of political intolerance toward various domestic groups.⁶

But while threat from terrorism is certainly a powerful stimulus, whether it produces an intolerant response is likely to depend on a variety of extenuating circumstances. In their comprehensive review of the impact of terrorist attacks on citizens’ political responses in the U.S. and abroad, Huddy and Feldman (2011, 457) cite numerous instances where public reactions to terrorism shift dramatically across different contexts, which, according to the authors, strongly suggests that “political reactions to terrorism depend on both existing political ideology and the prevailing political context in which the meaning of a terrorist attack is interpreted.” In short, attacks from terrorists, like many other domestic and international events, are likely to be mediated by the context—that is, the level of threat and political elites’ reactions to it—as well as citizens’ political identities (e.g., Berinsky 2009; Feldman, Huddy, and Marcus 2015).

Accordingly, social identity theory provides an important complement to intergroup threat theory by explaining how terrorism increases the intolerance of specific ingroups toward particular outgroups of fellow travelers. As noted by Brewer (2001), social identities (and political identities) fill two basic psychological needs—one of inclusion (being part of the group) and one of exclusion (distinguishing oneself from others). But as social identity theorists make clear, ingroup identities do not automatically predispose an individual to derogate an outgroup—that is, there is no necessary connection between “ingroup love” and “outgroup hate” (Brewer 2001). Rather, perceived threat from outgroups intensifies ingroup identities relevant to the threat and yokes them to outgroup derogation and intolerance (e.g., Gibson and Gouws 2003). Thus, as threat from terrorism increases, ingroup identities should become more strongly connected to hostility and intolerance toward fellow travelers.

In the wake of terror attacks, what domestic groups are most likely to be viewed as fellow travelers of terrorists? Because people automatically categorize the world into ingroups and outgroups, or “we” versus “they” (Tajfel and Turner 1979), and intergroup prejudice and hostility become more visceral and tribal in the face of threat, we theorize that ethnic minority groups that share the same national or religious characteristics as the terrorists should be the primary targets of intolerance.⁷ As noted earlier, for example, after terror attacks by Islamic extremists, Arab and Muslim groups in the U.S. and elsewhere were viewed as the “enemy Other”—violent, threatening, foreign and unassimilable, and therefore deserving of constant surveillance and other forms of civil liberties restrictions (e.g., Gillum 2018, Jamal 2008, 116–117; Huddy et al. 2005). Secondary targets of intolerance are likely to be fellow travelers who are sociologically dissimilar from terrorists but are perceived to be naïve sympathizers or “enablers” of either terrorist groups or associated domestic groups.

Which ingroup identities are likely to become fused with hostility and intolerance toward fellow traveler groups? At the collective level, powerful expressions of national identity often follow terror attacks (e.g., Li and Brewer 2004). Yet, research also shows that the political effects of national identity depend critically on its differential meaning among subgroups, especially the political Right and Left. A more ethnocultural view of national identity defines prototypical or “true” nationals in narrow, exclusive terms (e.g., as Christian or White in the U.S., Jewish in Israel), and supports more exclusionary and restrictive policies for domestic groups not considered prototypical (e.g., Muslims in the U.S.; Arabs in Israel) (e.g., Citrin and Wright 2009; Theiss-Morse 2009). Most importantly for our purposes, an exclusionary view of national identity is historically and ideologically associated with the political Right, while the Left, by contrast, tends to adopt a more inclusive, egalitarian, and civic posture toward ethnic minorities (e.g., Bonikowski 2017; Noel and Therien 2008; Semyonov, Raijman, and Gordzeisky 2006; Talshir 2005).

As a growing literature in political psychology demonstrates, ideological (and partisan) identities often function like other social identities in fueling greater mistrust, hostility, and prejudices toward opposition outgroups. Particularly when political identities converge with national, ethnic, and religious identities, reactions to group threat are fueled less by instrumental (e.g., policy) considerations and more by expressive reactions, such as motivated reasoning and strong defensive emotions that promote negative biases toward the opposition (Huddy et al. 2018, 173–4; Mason 2018). If such defensive responses routinely occur in the heat of political campaigns, existential threats from terrorism doubtless ratchet up more extreme, tribal defenses from strong political identities. This is particularly true for those who identify more strongly with the Right. Not only are right-wingers more likely to adopt an ethnocultural view of national identity, but associated traits, like authoritarianism and ethnocentrism, further magnify perceived threats from outgroups (e.g., Hetherington and Weiler 2018; Stephan, Ybarra, and Morrison 2016).

Below, we extend social identity theory to hypothesize how Left-Right political identities and outgroup characteristics in Israel should influence tolerance for fellow travelers given Israel’s experience with chronic terrorism.

Chronic Terrorism, Political Identities, and Outgroup Characteristics

During the years of our study, from 1980 to 2011, Israel faced close to 1,500 terror attacks, or more than 50 attacks per year (START 2016). Such persistent attacks from Palestinian terrorist groups doubtless served to prime and strengthen the association between political identities and intolerance toward fellow traveler groups.

Ingroup Identities

In fact, political identities in Israel are largely defined by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which emerged as the dominant cleavage dimension structuring Israeli politics after the occupation of territories seized in the 1967 Six Day War and the 1977 realignment and subsequent polarization. While this cleavage centers on security and the disputed territories, its roots are deeper and touch on the definition of Israel’s national identity in terms of Israel’s posture toward its Arab neighbors and the state’s inclusion of non-Jewish citizens (Shamir and Arian 1999). In addition to being more hawkish in responding to terrorism, the Right adopts a distinctly exclusionary posture toward Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, both of whom are viewed with suspicion and as a threat to the country’s security and national identity. By contrast, Israeli Jews on the Left tend to favor the inclusion of Israeli Arabs and negotiations with the Palestinians over the occupied territories. Finally, the Right puts higher value on the Jewish identity of the state, consistent with an ethnocultural national identity, while the Left prizes democratic and universalistic values and a more inclusive Israeli identity of the state, consistent with a civic national identity.⁸

Although less often studied in social identity research, political leaders on the Left and Right also play a powerful role in connecting threats to political identities (e.g., Huddy 2013; Sullivan and Hendriks 2009), with strong identifiers more likely to accept elite messages (Hogg and Reid 2006; Malka and Lelkes 2010), especially when elites are polarized (Druckman et al. 2013). Because parties on the Right in Israel, as in the U.S., “own” the issues of national security and terrorism (e.g., Berrebi and Klor 2006), there are clear incentives for stoking the public’s fear of terrorism for political gain (e.g., Lupia and Menning 2009; Mueller 2006; Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and Shapiro 2011). Right-bloc politicians in Israel have long vilified Israeli Arabs as posing a security threat to the state and accuse them of aiding Palestinian terrorist groups in the occupied territories (i.e., as constituting a “Fifth column”), despite the sparse evidence for such claims noted earlier. In fact, studies of ethnic conflict document a similar tendency for leaders in divided societies to magnify security fears by promoting misperceptions about ethnic minorities (e.g., Lake and Rothchild 1996; Nyhan and Zeitzoff 2018). Thus, consistent with social identity theory as well as theories of opinion leadership (e.g., Berinsky 2009; Zaller 1992), as the level of terrorism increases, citizens who identify with the Right should become less tolerant toward Israeli Arabs.

The Characteristics of Outgroups

Our theory also identifies the characteristics of fellow traveler groups who are likely to be the targets of intolerance in the wake of terror attacks in Israel. Given the potency of converging national, ethnic and religious identities in Israel, Arabs should be the primary targets of intolerance. Arabs share the same national characteristics as Palestinians in the occupied territories, where most attacks originate.

Outgroup hostility, however, should be greater toward disliked Arab political groups than Arab citizens at large. Arab political groups are active, visible and outspoken in their unequivocal advocacy and support for the Palestinian struggle against occupation. They also oppose Arabs’ second-class status in the Jewish state, a regime they criticize as discriminatory and not truly democratic. Thus, Arab political groups are likely to be the first and foremost fellow traveler group targeted for intolerance when levels of terrorism increase.

But how far does intolerance “travel?” To what extent does terrorism precipitate intolerance toward everyday rank and file Arab citizens? Although they lack the assertive political profile and salience of Arab political groups, they belong to the national and religious outgroup, and often identify as Palestinians. Few studies in the West examine whether non-Muslim citizens make a distinction between ordinary Muslims versus more politicized and unpopular Muslim groups in their country. An exception is a study by Sniderman et al. (2014), which found that even during the incendiary cartoon crisis in Denmark, the public’s political tolerance for “Muslims” was substantially higher than for “Islamic fundamentalists,” who were viewed as more violent and undemocratic than Muslims in general.

In our study, however, neither Arab political groups nor ordinary Arab citizens in Israel denounce democratic values; to the contrary, they push for inclusion in the democratic process. And contrary to the claims of right-wing politicians and pundits, Arab political groups do not support violent methods to achieve their political goals; their methods are by and large peaceful, lawful and democratic, relying on parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics (e.g., legal activism, demonstrations) to advance their political agenda (Peleg and Waxman 2011; Smooha 2004). Yet, it remains to be seen whether, in the aftermath of terror attacks, intolerance extends from Arab political groups to Arab citizens as a whole.

Beyond these “immediate suspects,” high levels of threat from terrorism can also precipitate a diffusion of intolerance to groups who do not share the demographic characteristics of terrorists but are perceived to be naïve sympathizers of terrorist groups. During the McCarthy era in the U.S., all manner of left-leaning groups were accused of contributing to communist subversion (Stouffer 1955). More generally, during crises or wartime, politicians often attempt to silence or discredit their critics by accusing the opposition of aiding the enemy (Fritz, Keefer, and Nyhan 2004).

In the Israeli case, while Jewish leftist groups are part of the Jewish majority, they are often criticized by the Right as “not being Jewish enough” and supporting the enemy by favoring compromise with Palestinians in the territories and equal political rights for Israeli Arabs. Indeed, on more than one occasion, the inflammatory rhetoric by the Right to portray the Left as collaborating with the “enemy” has been alleged to incite political violence. The most notorious example is the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 after he signed the Oslo accords and for months afterward was derided as a traitor and a murderer. The Right’s characterization of the Left as disloyal and supporting the “enemy” continued into the wave of terrorism of the second Intifada (e.g., Peri 2000) and remains entrenched today.⁹ Thus, the question is whether higher levels of terrorism can lower tolerance toward left-wing groups that are part of the Jewish majority.

To summarize, our theory suggests that the impact of chronic terrorism on intolerance toward fellow traveler groups should be targeted primarily toward outgroups defined by national identity, and secondarily toward ideological identity groups. Thus, the reaction should be strongest for Arab political groups, followed by Arab citizens and by Jewish political groups. In addition, given the ethnonationalist orientation of the Right in Israel, rightists should be more susceptible to a diffusion of intolerance.

Hypotheses

As our extension of social identity theory makes plain, the impact of chronic terrorism on political tolerance of fellow traveler groups depends not only on the number of attacks (i.e., the level of threat), but also on the characteristics of outgroups and the political identities of ingroups.

Hypothesis 1 centers on the level (i.e., the intercept) of political tolerance toward different fellow traveler groups, since greater public support for denying a group’s civil liberties is more likely to translate into repressive policies against the group. Hypotheses 2 and 3 take up the impact of terrorism for specific outgroups and identity groups.

H₁: For reasons outlined earlier, the level (i.e., intercept) of political tolerance for fellow traveler groups should be lower for Arab political groups than Israeli Arab citizens and Jewish leftist groups.

H₂: Higher levels of terror attacks are expected to lower political tolerance for all three fellow traveler groups among Israeli Jews, independently of other macro-level factors and individual-level predictors of political tolerance.

H_2a: The impact of terrorism on tolerance should also be stronger toward Israeli Arab political groups than the social group of Israeli Arab citizens and Jewish leftist groups.

H₃: Both the level of intolerance and the power of terror attacks to depress political tolerance for fellow traveler groups should be greater for individuals who identify with the Right than those who identify with the Center or the Left.

Data, Measures, and Methods

To test our hypotheses, we rely on Israeli surveys of Jewish citizens conducted from 1980 to 2011 administered by phone or face-to-face with representative samples of the adult Jewish population. All told, there are 18 surveys measuring political tolerance using the least-liked approach, of which 15 surveys also measure tolerance toward Israeli Arabs. (Table A1 in the online appendix provides the dates, polling firms, and sample sizes of the surveys.)

Individual-Level Measures

Political Tolerance

The dependent variable in the analysis below is political tolerance, assessed as a willingness to allow members of the group to demonstrate. We use the ‘demonstrate’ item because it was the only tolerance question asked in all surveys with both the least-liked and fixed group approaches to measuring tolerance. The right to demonstrate or protest is clearly a fundamental democratic liberty involving elements of free speech as well as the right to assemble and to criticize the government. Moreover, the freedom to demonstrate is particularly important in the Israeli context because demonstrations are the most common form of political participation by the Arab minority.

The two question formats used to assess political tolerance allow us to shift the focus from tolerance of disliked Arab and Jewish leftist political groups, using the least-liked approach, to Israeli Arab citizens as a broad social group, using the fixed group approach. For the 18 surveys that included the least-liked tolerance battery, respondents were first asked to select the group they like the least from a list of domestic political groups (or to suggest a group not on the list), and were then asked the extent to which they agreed that the selected group “should be allowed to demonstrate.” Our focus in the first part of the analysis is on individuals who selected Israeli Arab and Jewish leftist political groups as least-liked. For the 15 surveys that included the fixed group measure, all respondents were asked the extent to which they agreed that “the Arab citizens of Israel” should be allowed to demonstrate on the same 5-point Likert scale used in the least-liked battery, ranging from low tolerance/strong disagreement (0) to high tolerance/strong agreement (4).¹⁰

The two measures clearly complement each other. An advantage of the least-liked measure is that it captures an important aspect of toleration by asking respondents whether the Arab or Jewish leftist political groups they find objectionable should be allowed to demonstrate. The advantage of the fixed-group measure is that it asks all respondents whether Israeli Arabs as a broad social class of fellow citizens should be granted basic political freedoms such as the right to demonstrate. While some studies evaluate the merits of either least-liked or fixed-group tolerance measures (e.g., Petersen et al. 2011), for the purpose of our study, together they yield a more comprehensive portrait of how chronic terrorism lowers tolerance toward a range of different groups, including disliked Arab and Jewish political groups, as well as the community of Arab citizens of Israel.

Political Identification

As discussed earlier, left-right political identification in Israel is expected to be a key moderator of the impact of terrorism on tolerance toward fellow travelers, with individuals on the Right being more likely to evince a diffusion of intolerance. The 5-point Right-Left Political Identity scale was coded Right (0), Moderate Right (1), Center (2) Moderate Left (3), and Left (4), with the two end-points of the scale indicating stronger identification with the Right/Left (see Online Appendix Section 1 for details on this and other measures).

Demographic Characteristics

Religiosity is an important cleavage in Israeli politics, and a significant predictor of political tolerance, with more orthodox Jews being less politically tolerant than those who are more secular. Because religion has become more closely aligned with identities on the Left-Right continuum, it is an open question whether religiosity will independently contribute to tolerance of Israeli Arabs. In the analysis below, we include a measure of religious identification using the following 4-point scale: orthodox (coded 3), religious (2), traditional (1) or secular (0). We also incorporate several other demographic variables in the analysis as controls, including education, age, female, and income, as described in Online Appendix Section 1.

A handful of other individual-level predictors of tolerance—that is, support for general norms of democracy, psychological security, and individual perceptions of threat—are not included in our study because measures of these concepts were not available in many of our surveys. Their absence limits our ability to identify the micro-level mechanisms through which terror attacks influence tolerance. Our primary findings should not be affected, however, since the goal of our study is to complement individual-level research by examining how fluctuations in objective threat levels from terror attacks influence tolerance over time.¹¹

Macro-Level Measures

Terrorism

Terrorism is assessed as the total number of terror attacks perpetrated within the internationally recognized borders of Israel within 3 months prior to the start of the survey, using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which offers several advantages.¹² We use the most generic GTD measure, the total number of attacks prior to the survey, because the form of terrorism—for example, skyjackings, hostage taking, bombings, assassinations, suicide terrorism, rocket attacks—changed dramatically over time in Israel, and because some GTD measures, such as fatalities and suicide terrorism are heavily concentrated in the second Intifada. A lag of 3 months prior to the start of the survey is consistent with prior studies (e.g., Jaeger et al. 2012) and proved to be more robust than other lag alternatives. For our study, Terror Attacks ranges from 0 to 27 attacks, with an average of 11 attacks in the 3 months prior to our surveys.

Economic Growth

Because prior research finds a tendency for authoritarianism (e.g., Sales 1972) and political intolerance (e.g., Merolla and Zechmeister 2009) to rise in the face of economic threats, we include an indicator of economic growth as a control to capture the state of the Israeli economy, which we lag from the year prior to the survey, using the World Development Indicators’ GDP per capita data (World Bank 2014). Economic Growth ranges from 0 to 9.2% in our study.

Continuous Democracy

We also include the number of years of continuous democracy based on the Polity IV data (Marshall and Jaggers 2012) to account for the long-term effects of democratic longevity on tolerance in Israel (see Rohrschneider 1996; Peffley and Rohrschneider 2003; Hutchison 2014). Because the impact of continuous democracy on tolerance should diminish over time, with smaller gains as a democracy matures, we include a quadratic term to capture the expected nonmonotonic relationship. Also, to simplify the interpretation of coefficients, we scale the original monthly measure to years and assign a 0 to the first survey, making the value of last survey 30.4 years.

Finally, as an additional control, because the success of Arab parties in national elections may trigger feelings of political threat and intolerance among the Jewish majority, we include the percentage of Knesset seats held by Arab parties in the Knesset session at the time of the survey (Percent Arab Seats), which ranges from a low of 4.2 to a high of 9.2.

Results

To test our hypotheses, we use multilevel modelling, since individuals are nested within surveys conducted at different points in time (Snijders and Bosker 2012).¹³ In Table 1, we present the estimates of several linear multilevel models predicting political tolerance for both the least-liked and fixed-group measures. We first consider Models 1–4 on the left-hand side of the table that estimate tolerance for least-liked groups (LLG), and then consider Models 5–6 on the right predicting tolerance for Israeli Arab citizens.

Table 1.

Impact of Terrorism on the Political Tolerance of Israeli Jews, 1980–2011.

	Least-Liked Group				Israeli Arabs
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
Individual-level
Religiosity	−0.05 (0.01)	−0.06 (0.01)	−0.06 (0.01)	−0.06 (0.01)	−0.16 (0.01)	−0.16 (0.01)
Education	0.14 (0.01)	0.14 (0.01)	0.14 (0.01)	0.14 (0.01)	0.23 (0.01)	0.23 (0.01)
Income	0.06 (0.01)	0.06 (0.01)	0.06 (0.01)	0.06 (0.01)	0.06 (0.01)	0.06 (0.01)
Age	−0.03 (0.01)	−0.03 (0.01)	−0.03 (0.01)	−0.03 (0.01)	0.04 (0.01)	0.04 (0.01)
Gender (Male = 0)	−0.10 (0.02)	−0.10 (0.02)	−0.11 (0.02)	−0.10 (0.02)	−0.10 (0.02)	−0.09 (0.02)
Political identity (Right to Left)	0.09 (0.02)	0.06 (0.02)	0.07 (0.02)	0.12 (0.05)	0.20 (0.01)	0.16 (0.01)
LLG group (Left LLG = 0)
Arab LLG		−0.44 (0.03)	−0.43 (0.05)	−0.37 (0.07)
Not Arab/Left LLG		−0.13 (0.04)	−0.26 (0.06)	−0.05 (0.08)
Survey-Year
Terror attacks (3 months)	−0.014 (0.004)	−0.011 (0.003)	−0.013 (0.004)	−0.009 (0.0045)	−0.004 (0.004)	−0.011 (0.004)
Political Identity x Terror Attacks				0.001 (0.003)		0.004 (0.001)
Continuous democracy	0.06 (0.02)	0.04 (0.01)	0.04 (0.01)	0.04 (0.01)	0.05 (0.02)	0.05 (0.02)
Continuous democracy²	−0.002 (0.00)	−0.001 (0.00)	−0.001 (0.00)	−0.001 (0.00)	−0.001 (0.00)	−0.001 (0.00)
Economic growth	0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)
Arab party Knesset seats %	0.01 (0.04)	0.02 (0.03)	0.03 (0.03)	0.03 (0.03)	0.01 (0.04)	0.01 (0.04)
LLG group x Terror attacks
Arab LLG x Terror Attacks			0.001 (0.00)	−0.003 (0.00)
Not Arab/Left LLG x Terror Attacks			0.011 (0.00)	0.002 (0.01)
LLG Group x Political ID
Arab LLG x Political ID				−0.08 (0.05)
Not Arab/Left LLG x Political ID				−0.14 (0.05)
LLG Group x Terror Attacks x Political ID
Arab LLG x Terror Attacks x Political ID				0.003 (0.00)
Not Arab/Left LLG x Terror Attacks x Political ID				0.005 (0.00)
Constant	1.32 (0.22)	1.64 (0.16)	1.63 (0.17)	1.56 (0.17)	0.95 (0.20)	1.01 (0.20)
Random Effects Parameter
Survey	0.02 (0.01)	0.01 (0.00)	0.01 (0.00)	0.01 (0.00)	0.02 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)
Residual	1.58 (0.02)	1.59 (0.02)	1.59 (0.02)	1.59 (0.02)	1.41 (0.02)	1.41 (0.02)
Observations
Surveys	18	18	18	18	15	15
Individuals	14,257	13,733	13,733	13,733	13,874	13,874

All coefficients have p < 0.05 except those listed in bold.

Note: Entries are maximum likelihood coefficients for a linear multilevel model using Stata 15, with standard errors in parentheses. Higher values on the following variables indicate: greater political tolerance, orthodox religiosity, education, income, age, female, Left political identity, number of terror attacks in 3 months prior to the survey, continuous years of democracy, GDP growth, and % of Arab party Knesset seats.

Tolerance of Least-Liked Arab and Jewish Leftist Groups

Model 1 captures the effects of an additive baseline model that includes all micro- and macro-level predictors of tolerance toward least-liked groups. In the baseline and subsequent models, terrorism significantly lowers tolerance toward least-liked groups.¹⁴ In order to test Hypothesis 1, which predicts the level of tolerance will be lower for disliked Arab groups than disliked Jewish leftist groups, Model 2 adds two dummy variables indicating whether the respondent selected an Arab least-liked group (Arab LLG) or neither an Arab nor a leftist least-liked group (Not Arab/Leftist LLG). Given that the omitted category indicates selection of disliked Jewish leftist groups, the significant negative coefficient for Arab LLG in Model 2 (b = −0.44, p < 0.01) shows support for Hypothesis 1, since tolerance toward disliked Arab groups is lower than disliked Jewish leftist groups.

But does terrorism drive down political tolerance for the two least-liked groups (H₂), and is the impact of terrorism stronger for disliked Arab than Jewish leftist groups (H_2a)? We test both hypotheses in Model 3 by forming cross-level interactions between terrorism and the two group dummies—that is, Arab LLG and Not Arab/Leftist LLG. In answer to the first question, terrorism decreases forbearance significantly for both target groups. In fact, terror attacks drive down tolerance at approximately the same rate (b = −0.013, p < 0.01) for respondents selecting either a disliked Jewish leftist group or a disliked Arab group,¹⁵ which runs contrary to hypothesis H_2a. We shall see below that the reason for this negative result is due to the strong, intolerant reaction to terrorism by those on the Right, regardless of the target group.

To test H₃, which predicts terrorism has a greater impact among rightists than centrists or leftists, Model 4 adds two 3-way interactions between Terror Attacks, Political Identification and each of the two group dummies, as well as all lower-order terms. Because 3-way interactions are notoriously difficult to interpret, we graph the predicted values of political tolerance toward disliked Arab and Jewish leftist groups in Panels A and B of Figure 1, respectively. For each fellow traveler group, we display the predicted values of tolerance (y-axis) by the number of terror attacks (x-axis) for all five ideological groups.¹⁶

Figure 1.

Predicting Political Tolerance across Left-Right Identity and Fellow Traveler Group. **p < 0.05, *p < 0.10, two-tailed, for slope of terrorism. Note: Predicted values and 95% confidence intervals are based on estimates in Table 1, Model 4 (Arab LLGs and Leftist LLGs) and Model 6 (Arab citizens). Panels A and B are based on agreement with the statement, “Members of [least-liked group] should be allowed to demonstrate?” The statement for Panel C is, “Arabs (citizens of Israel) should be allowed to demonstrate?”.

As can be seen in the left-most graphs of Panels A and B, consistent with H₃, the force of terrorism in lowering tolerance toward disliked Arab and Jewish leftist groups is greater on the political Right than the Left or the Center. Thus, when terrorism increases, Jews who identify more strongly with the Right are far more likely to react by withdrawing support for allowing the two disliked groups to demonstrate.¹⁷ By contrast, for respondents in the Center or on the Left, the effect of terrorism on tolerance is small and insignificant for the relevant fellow traveler groups. Thus, for the two least-liked groups, terrorism creates a diffusion of intolerance among Israel’s Jewish citizens on the Right, but not among the Center or Left.

Effects of Control Variables

We also note that several control variables in Models 1–4 influence tolerance of disliked groups in expected ways.¹⁸ The coefficients in Model 3 show that, consistent with prior research, forbearance of disliked groups is significantly higher among Israeli Jews who are: less orthodox in their religious identity (b = −0.06), more highly educated (b = 0.14), affluent (b = 0.06), younger (b = −0.03), and male (b = −0.11). In addition, the significant quadratic term for years of continuous democracy in Models 1–3 indicates that, over time, tolerance toward least-liked groups increases nonmonotonically, while the percentage of Arab seats in the Knesset and economic growth have little impact.¹⁹

Political Tolerance toward Israeli Arab Citizens

Does intolerance travel to ordinary Arab citizens as well? In Models 5 and 6 in Table 1, we provide the results of a similar set of multilevel models, this time estimating Jewish respondents’ willingness to allow Arab citizens the right to demonstrate, using the fixed-choice question.²⁰ In Model 5, the effect of terror attacks on tolerance toward Arab citizens is significant but smaller than the comparable coefficient for least-liked groups (see Model 3). In Model 6, however, after adding the highly significant interaction between political identity and terror attacks (Political ID x Terror Attacks), the coefficient for Terror Attacks (b = −0.011, p < 0.01) shows that as terrorism increases, strong rightist identifiers (coded 0) are far less likely to support allowing Israeli Arab citizens to demonstrate.²¹

In Panel C of Figure 1, we present the five graphs of tolerance toward Arab citizens for Right-Left respondents groups based on Model 6. Comparing the levels of tolerance (indicated by the intercepts) between Panels A and C for the ideological groups reveals two patterns. First, Jews in the Center and on the Left express substantially more forbearance toward Arab citizens (Panel C) than they do for disliked Arab groups (Panel A), consistent with H₁. The same is not true for those on the Right, however. Not only is their level of tolerance toward Arab citizens much lower compared to centrist and leftist respondents, but comparing Panels A and C for strongly identified right-wing respondents (column 1), there is no real difference in their level of forbearance (i.e., the intercepts) for disliked Arab groups versus Arab citizens, a result confirmed by significance tests (Online Appendix Table A9).

Most importantly, rightists also stand out in their stronger reaction to rising terror attacks by withdrawing tolerance for Arab citizens, compared with leftists or centrists, consistent with H₃. Similar to the results for least-liked groups (Panels A and B), terrorism significantly lowers tolerance toward Arab citizens among the Right (b = −0.011, p < 0.01) and the Moderate Right (b = −0.007, p = 0.08) but not among leftists (b = 0.005, p = 0.2) or centrists (b = −0.003, p = 0.48).

Summarizing our results, we find strong support for several of our hypotheses. Consistent with H₁, we found the level (i.e., intercept) of tolerance to be significantly lower toward disliked Arab political groups than disliked Jewish leftist groups or ordinary Arab citizens, with one important exception: Jews who identify with the Right make no apparent distinction between Arab political groups and Arab citizens in their level of forbearance. And consistent with H_3, the power of terrorism (i.e., the slope) to lower tolerance toward fellow traveler groups is much stronger for right-wingers than centrists or left-wingers. In fact, it is only the Right that reacts to higher levels of terrorism with a diffusion of intolerance toward all three fellow traveler groups. Moreover, their intolerance in response to terrorism travels broadly and categorically, with little differentiation across the three target groups.

Robustness Checks

In the online appendix, we present a series of robustness checks that introduce additional measures or specifications that provide confidence in our results because they do not alter the major findings reported above. First, in Section 7, we complement the more easily interpreted linear estimates in Table 1 with those from ordered logit multilevel models that produce very similar results. Second, in Section 6, we investigate one explanation why terrorism does not make right-wingers more intolerant of Arab than Jewish leftist least-liked groups, as predicted by H_2a. We show that prior to the 1993 Oslo peace process, terrorism had no impact on the Right’s intolerance of leftist groups. But after 1993 and into the Second Intifada, when the Right characterized the Left as collaborating with the Arab enemies of Israel, the diffusion of intolerance among the Right included Jewish leftist groups as well as Arab groups. Third, as detailed in Section 8, our results remain unchanged even after including several different measures of external threat (e.g., international militarized disputes and the number of terror attacks in the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank) as controls, none of which significantly influence political tolerance toward fellow travelers. Fourth, we show in Section 9 that a stable majority of rightists select Arabs as their least-liked group regardless of the level of terrorism. Thus, the impact of terrorism on right-wing intolerance is not due to selection effects. Politically, however, the large number of rightists picking Arab groups suggests an important brake on support for free speech and protest in Israeli society, especially in the context of terror attacks. Fifth, in Section 10, we show that our results predicting tolerance toward Arab least-liked groups hold even after removing respondents who selected the Islamic Movement in the 2001–2011 surveys, a period during which there were allegations reported in the Israeli press that some leaders of the group were involved in illegal activities and supported terrorism in the Occupied Territories (the latter charge was not proved in court). Our findings demonstrate that intolerance on the Right is more broadly directed toward Arab groups in general and not a function of a particular group. Finally, in Section 11, for the 7 Israeli surveys that include a measure of ethno-nationalist identity, we show that Right-Left identification is highly correlated with ethno-nationalism, thus providing additional support for our theory.

Conclusions

Our study contributes to mounting evidence demonstrating the many ways that terrorism poses a substantial threat to liberal democracies. We examined two critical political questions in tracing the impact of terrorism on political tolerance: Who favors repressing whom, and how far does intolerance travel? As far as we know, our study is the first to demonstrate how chronic terror attacks precipitated a clear diffusion of political intolerance toward several domestic groups alleged to be fellow travelers of the perpetrators of violence. Consistent with social identity theory, terrorism precipitated intolerance toward three groups of fellow travelers—Arab political groups and ordinary Arab citizens who share a national, religious, and ethnic background with terrorist groups in the occupied territories, as well as Jewish political groups viewed as enablers or sympathizers of terrorist groups. The three groups are classic fellow travelers because they are distant from the actual perpetrators of violence and do not pose a security risk to the state of Israel.

Moreover, consistent with our theory, the intolerance that we found varied across both the characteristics of outgroups and the political identities of the ingroup, as well as the political context. For example, we found clear differences in the level of political tolerance across different groups of fellow travelers. Even when terrorism is low, Jewish citizens across the ideological spectrum simply do not afford disliked Arab groups the same level of forbearance as disliked Jewish leftist groups.

Even more important, reactions to terrorism varied dramatically across Left-Right identity groups in Israel. At elevated levels of political violence, Israeli Jews identifying strongly with the Right were much less willing to allow all three groups of fellow travelers to demonstrate. In fact, the diffusion of intolerance we uncovered was, for the most part, limited to right-wingers, among whom terrorism depressed tolerance at nearly identical rates across fellow traveler groups. Our extension of social identity theory makes their distinct response more explicable. When threat is high, the confluence of psychological and political forces can blur outgroup boundaries among rightists, who view their ingroup (“we”) more narrowly and fellow traveler outgroups (“they”) more broadly and more categorically without differentiating between them. More research at the individual-level is of course needed to pinpoint the microlevel mechanisms that underlie this distinct response.

Our findings are even more striking considering time-series evidence that terrorism in Israel also tends to increase identification with the Right (Peffley et al. 2018), for two reasons. First, the effects of terrorism are not just short-term, but also influence the balance of more long-term political identities over time. Second, because terror attacks tend to drive up the number of people expressing a right-wing identity, the increase in intolerance is occurring among the Right that has been diluted with newly identified members. In short, terrorism matters for political tolerance in multiple ways.

Although our study focused more on the diffusion of intolerance—and therefore on the Right—more work is needed on the role played by the Left and the Center in resisting intolerance even in the face of elevated threats from political violence. To what extent is the Left’s greater tolerance due to their commitment to principles of civil liberties, their opposition to prejudice toward ethnic minorities, or the political communications of leaders on the Left? And under what conditions does the public abandon the Left if it does not feel safe from terrorism? Even the Left can be persuaded to support more repressive policies in the short-term if they feel threatened (e.g., Hetherington and Suhay 2011). But in Israel, persistent terrorism eventually gave rise to a shift away from the Left in political identities (Peffley et al. 2018).

Our results also show that polarized identities shape diverging reactions to terrorism, mirroring their role in producing separate perceptual realities in other policy domains (e.g., Mason 2018). In a very real, practical sense, ignoring such identities underestimates the true impact of terrorism and other events on political behavior. Clearly, further study is needed to bolster our findings and pinpoint the conditions that give rise to a familiar scenario in a growing number of countries, including the U.S. When social and political identity groups become more polarized, and the Right is more committed to an exclusionary, ethnocultural vision of national identity, the universal rights and protections of liberal democracies are often threatened (e.g., Bartels 2020; McCoy and Somer 2019).

In Israel and elsewhere, the diffusion of intolerance has serious consequences for democratic backsliding. The wide-ranging intolerance of many rightists supports severe constraints on free speech and protest in Israeli society. The right-wing governments in power during the period we studied passed legislation limiting the rights and liberties of Arab parties and Arab citizens. More recently, Netanyahu’s government in 2017–2018 sought to downgrade important foundations of liberal democracy by attacking the Supreme Court’s protection of “universal rights” versus the rights of the Jewish majority (Blatman 2017), and in 2018, passing a historic “Basic Law” in the Knesset making the right of national self-determination “unique to the Jewish people.” In the words of one observer, the fear of terrorism triggered an impulse among the Right in Israel to “choose identity over democracy” (Fisher 2018).

Beyond Israel, terrorism and other forms of political violence have been used as a pretext for diluting or dismantling liberal democracies. In Turkey, for example, after an increase in terror attacks in 2015, and before the 2016 coup attempt, Erdogan’s government linked Turkish groups on the Left to Kurdish militants and other state “enemies” associated with terrorism to clamp down on dissent throughout the country (Fahim 2017). In India, rising intolerance toward Muslims and leftists has been stoked, in part, by the actions and rhetoric of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s conservative Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (Gopal 2016), which helped pave the way for the current political repression of Kashmiri and Muslim citizens.

Although advanced Western democracies have not suffered from chronic terrorism, they are home to a significant Muslim population and a prime destination for recent waves of immigration. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Europeans, especially those on the Right, saw a close connection between the refugee crisis and the threat of terrorism (Wike, Stokes, and Simmons 2016, 30). In the U.S., anti-Muslim views became an important part of the partisan and ideological divide on identity issues (i.e., immigration, race, and religion) in the Trump era (e.g., Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck 2018; Fording and Schram 2020).

In addition to damaging democracy, the repression of fellow travelers can be counterproductive in the fight against terrorism and may even play into the hands of terrorists. Students of terrorism point out that an important goal of terrorists is to recruit followers by provoking the government to over-react and lose legitimacy (e.g., Jaeger et al. 2012; Bueno de Mesquita and Dickson 2007). Other studies show how a backlash against Muslims after attacks by radical Islamist groups can halt the assimilation of Muslim immigrants into Western society (e.g., Gould and Klor 2016). More to the point, research shows that the intensity of anti-Muslim hostility at the local level in Western Europe is linked to online pro-ISIS radicalization (Mitts 2019); and that punitive counterterrorism strategies that seriously compromise civil liberties and human rights end up “[hampering] counterterrorism while increasing terrorist activity” (e.g., Piazza and Walsh 2010, 411).

It is worth emphasizing that the tendency for terrorism to create a diffusion of intolerance toward fellow travelers is not inevitable. Political elites play a critical role in stoking public fears and targeting outgroups for derogation and intolerance. In the U.S., for example, one need only contrast the actions of Republican President George W. Bush, who just days after 9/11 visited a mosque to admonish attacks against Muslims as un-American, with the actions of President Trump, who, 2 months after his inauguration, signed executive orders to ban travel from several Muslim countries and during his administration consistently downplayed the threat of domestic terrorism from far-right extremist groups.

Another example of the critical role of political leaders is the response of Danish elites in tamping down public fears and intolerance after the “cartoon crisis” led to fierce protests by Muslim groups in Denmark and around the world (e.g., Sniderman et al. 2014). Given the crucial role that political elites play in interpreting “raw” international events (e.g., wars and terrorism) for the public (e.g., Berinsky 2009; Tomz, Weeks, and Yarhi-Milo 2020), future research must investigate how elite political rhetoric over time can raise or lower intolerance toward fellow traveler groups.

More explicit tests of our theory are certainly in order. To what extent do strong ideological identities on the Right account for political intolerance in the face of threat—both perceived and randomly manipulated in a survey experiment? And how universal is the applicability of our theory to other contexts and countries? Finally, how far can political identities and perceptions of threat from fellow traveler groups take us in explaining not just political intolerance but full-scale democratic backsliding?

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-jcr-10.1177_00220027211069121 Supplemental Material for Terrorism and Political Tolerance toward “Fellow Travelers”

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jcr-10.1177_00220027211069121 for Terrorism and Political Tolerance toward “Fellow Travelers” by Mark Peffley, Marc L. Hutchison, and Michal Shamir in Journal of Conflict Resolution

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Yochanan Peres, Eppie Yuchtman-Yaar, and Noah Lewin-Epstein for their willingness to share their survey data with us. We would like to thank Robert Rohrschneider, John Sides, Omer Yair, Kerem Ozan Kalkan, Shana Kushner Gadarian, Leonie Huddy, Brian Krueger, Clayton Thyne, and Abby Cordova for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. We are indebted to Yasmin Alkalai, Yael Proaktor, Yu Ouyang, and John Poe for their technical assistance.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Marc L. Hutchison

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

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