The impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on intergroup attitudes in Germany: Evidence from a natural experiment

This paper leverages the exogenous intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in May 2021 during the fieldwork period of a survey study to estimate how salient conflicts abroad can affect inter-group attitudes among individuals living in Germany. Previous research has highlighted the saliency of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict particularly among Muslims both in and outside of the Middle East. Our research design, which oversamples the Muslim minority, enables us to investigate and compare the effects of this conflict episode on attitudes of both the majority and the minority population in Germany. Results of the natural experiment indicate that the violent escalation between Palestinian Jihadi groups from the Gaza-Strip and the Israeli Defense Forces during May 2021 have significantly increased anti-Semitic sentiments among respondents. Surprisingly, these effects were particularly pronounced among the majority population but not among Muslim respondents. Moreover, this conflict episode deteriorated attitudes of respondents who self-identified as moderates but not of those who are at the extreme ends of the ideological spectrum.