IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/defpea/v35y2024i8p1070-1101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

No, Punitive House Demolition Does Not Reduce Suicide Bombing: Revisiting Evidence from the Second Intifada

Author

Listed:
  • Belal Fallah

Abstract

Punitive house demolitions were intensified by the Israeli government during the Second Intifada with the intent of curbing suicide bombings. Using econometric analysis, Benmelech et al. (2015) suggest that this policy is effective, citing deterrence as the driving factor. In 2014, the Israeli Supreme Court relied on the findings of an earlier draft of the Benmelech paper to reject a petition against the resumption of punitive housing demolition. In this research, I show that the Benmelech findings are spurious due to misspecified modelling and that the reported effect of punitive house demolition camouflages confounding factors. I also show that among the multiple security measures put in place during the Second Intifada, arrest campaigns did negatively impacted suicide bombings. I provide suggestive evidence that explains individual motives for suicide bombings and why punitive house demolition lacks a deterrence effect. The motives are likely related to the aggravation of grievances from excessive state oppression, willingness to exact revenge, and the glorification of self-sacrifice and martyrdom in asymmetric conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Belal Fallah, 2024. "No, Punitive House Demolition Does Not Reduce Suicide Bombing: Revisiting Evidence from the Second Intifada," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(8), pages 1070-1101, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:35:y:2024:i:8:p:1070-1101
    DOI: 10.1080/10242694.2023.2289000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10242694.2023.2289000
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10242694.2023.2289000?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:35:y:2024:i:8:p:1070-1101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/GDPE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.