Islam and Attitudes toward International Conflict

This article examines the impact of religious orientation on attitudes toward the Arab-Israeli conflict using survey data from five Arab countries: Egypt, Kuwait, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon. Consistent with past research that has demonstrated the structural complexity of religious orientations, the present analysis reveals an empirical distinction between personal and political dimensions of religion in all cases where data are available. The relationship between each dimension and attitudes toward the Arab-Israeli conflict is different, with the same pattern of relationships observed cross nationally. Specifically, support for political Islam is associated with unfavorable attitudes toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and personal religiosity and piety are unrelated to attitudes toward the conflict. The consistency of the variable relationships found in the Arab world, in comparison with findings from research based on Western countries, suggests that relationships between religious orientations and political attitudes may be more stable in regions where secularism is less pronounced.