Opportunity to Resist

In April 2001 a new form of political violence was introduced in the Palestinian territories as a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Such rockets gradually became this decade s main form of Palestinian armed resistance to the Israeli occupation, and came to be a fundamental issue of contention in the conflict. While initially public support for the rocket attacks was limited, polls soon revealed that the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip support the attacks. Exploration of such sentiments in the Palestinian setting is rare and little is known about the proponents of rocket launches and the mechanisms that trigger such support. Poll data from 2008 is used to analyze the variation within the Palestinian public opinion on this issue. Contrary to the often-assumed association between marginalization and radical attitudes, this book finds that it is not poverty, frustration or aggression that best explain variation in public opinion, but people s ability or opportunity to resist. The analysis should be useful to anyone interested in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the interplay between political violence and public opinion.

Autorentext

Silje Sønsterudbråten is a researcher at Fafo, Institute for Applied International Studies. Her background is in Middle Eastern studies, development geography and political science and she holds a MA in "Peace and Conflict Studies" from the University of Oslo.