The Intifada and Israeli voters: Policy preferences and performance evaluations

In the months before the 1988 elections, the intifada had far-reaching effects on Israel and Israelis. The pre-intifada vote intention variable raised some problems of multicollinarity. The overall pattern indicates a fairly strong relationship between the way people vote and their attitudes toward the major issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Also, voters who became more hawkish tended to vote for the right; voters who have become more dovish tended to vote for the left. The chapter shows that policy issues and performance evaluations centering on the Arab-Israeli conflict were closely related to the 1988 vote. The transfer policy instrument has been clearly tied to the goal of a Greater Israel; the international conference has been related to returning territory. Trading territory for peace or transferring the Arab population from the territories may be regarded as either means or ends, as instruments of policy or as outcomes.