Contributory factors to Political Xenophobia in a multi-cultural society: The case of Israel

The aim of this article is to assess the explanatory potential of three kinds of reasoning (socio-economic, political and psychological) in the field of political xenophobia. The Israeli arena, chosen for the study, provides a relevant context for the study of political xenophobia. This can be attributed to the varied ethnic populations in this country (immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, foreign workers and Palestinian Citizens of Israel), which attract the animosity of the veteran Jewish group. Our findings, based on a series of multiple linear regressions of the data collected from 994 respondents support the hypotheses. As hypothesized, the prominent finding is that while the socio-economic approach has a minor explanatory capability and the political approach explains mainly certain types of political xenophobia, the psychological approach is not only powerful for explaining all types of political xenophobia, but constant in its explanatory ability.