Adolescents Exposed to 7 Years of Political Violence: Differential Relations Between Exposure and...

Adolescents Exposed to 7 Years of Political Violence:Differential Relations Between Exposureand Its Impact for Jewish and Arab Israelis

Michelle Slone & Tomer Shechner

Accepted: 6 February 2011 /Published online: 23 February 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract The first aim of this study was to describe exposure to political violence andits assigned impact for Israeli adolescents growing up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflictenvironment, spanning 7 years of the second Palestinian Intifada (1998–2004). Thesecond aim was to examine ethnic group differences in exposure and impact over thisperiod. Participants were 3800 Jewish and Arab Israeli adolescents, sampled in across-sectional design during three exposure periods—antecedent, peak and recedingIntifada—who completed a Political Life Events (PLE) questionnaire that yieldedobjective exposure and subjective impact measures. As expected, for the full sample,PLE exposure peaked at the Intifada peak, but increased exposure was not matched byincreased impact. Ethnic group differences were found for both objective exposure andsubjective impact and for their pattern across the three Intifada time periods. Thisethnic group influence is discussed from a cross-cultural, politico-ideological anddevelopmental perspective.

Keywords Political violence . Adolescence . Ethnic group . Life events

The normal developmental tasks that confront children and adolescents arecompounded manifold when they grow up in an environment of political violenceand terrorism (Barber 2009; Gurwitch et al. 2002). The period of adolescenceparticularly, that has been only sparsely studied in this context (Barber 2009), affordsan apt opening into examination of influences on development at the juncture pointof personal, ethnic and national processes. Developmental aspects and theirinterrelations form within ever-widening circles of influence, in line with ecologicaldevelopmental theory (Bronfenbrenner 1989), some of which are universal andothers culturally-particular. The present research situated in Israel during the

Child Ind Res (2011) 4:529–545DOI 10.1007/s12187-011-9110-x

M. Slone (*) : T. ShechnerDepartment of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, PO Box 39040, Tel Aviv 69978, Israele-mail: [email protected]

T. Shechnere-mail: [email protected]

contentious and tense Israeli-Palestinian conflict examined political violenceexposure and its impact among both Jewish and Arab Israeli adolescents, enablinga unique aperture into the intricate interactions between personal, ethnic and nationallevels of influence. Examination of same-aged adolescents, living within the samegeographical region saturated by political hostilities, but affiliated to two differentethnic groups integrally differentially related to the roots and base of the conflict,provides the rationale for this research.

1 Ethnicity as a Filter of Conflict Experience

Cross-cultural and ethnic affiliation differences form the basis of differentpredictions for exposure to political violence and its impact for Jewish and ArabIsraeli adolescents. Ethnic affiliation is not a fixed categorization or a static end-point, but rather a fluid and dynamic understanding of self and ethnic backgroundthat may vary according to social context (Phinney 2003). Thus, ethnic identity isconstructed and modified constantly within the larger socio-cultural setting. Ethnicidentity is contextual and situational since it derives from social negotiations inwhich an ethnic identity is declared and demonstrated by exhibiting acknowledgedethnic group markers to others. Affiliation can be influenced by racial, natal,symbolic, and cultural factors (Cheung 1993). Individuals claim an identity withinthe context of a subgroup that shares common ancestry, similar culture, race,religion, language, kinship, or place of origin.

In intractable conflict situations, involved parties view themselves as havingparticular identities in the context of the specific conflict, springing from their self-conception and group affiliations (Rothman 1997). These views have beenconceptualized as identity frames that serve as an interpretive device used to makesense of a complex, difficult, and often cumbersome, set of circumstances (Gray2003). The concept of identity frame is important since it allows analysis of ways inwhich identity and group affiliation influence perspectives on and response to theconflict. The present research examines ways in which ethnic affiliation asJewish or Arab Israeli may differentially affect exposure to political violencewithin the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and subjective appraisals of the impact ofthat exposure.

2 The Israeli Case

The Israeli population is constituted by diverse multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, andmulti-religious groups, of which the two main constituents are the Jewish majorityand the Arab minority. Within Israel, the Israeli Arabs are the largest minority group,comprising 20.3% of the total population (Central Bureau of Statistics, October,2010). During the War of Independence, much of the Arab population inhabitingformer Palestine fled and settled in refugee camps along neighboring Arab countries,eventually constituting the Palestinian nation (Ghanem 2001). Those who decidednot to flee accepted citizenship in the Israeli state and were granted formal civic andlegal equality.

530 M. Slone, T. Shechner

The Israeli—Palestinian conflict has magnified since the 6 Day War in 1967,during which Israel conquered Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan,land inhabited by Palestinians. Ensuing unrest against the occupation prompted therise of fundamental organizations advocating armed force to establish anindependent Palestinian state (Smith 1996). The conflict has been marked by twoviolent uprisings of the Palestinians, the second of which, Intifada el Aksa, broke outin October 2000. The eruption of this Intifada produced unprecedented cycles ofviolence and mounting casualties on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. For thePalestinians, the conflict brought reoccupation by the Israeli army, destruction ofhomes, and dire economic hardship. For the Israelis, all sense of security wasdisturbed by a wave of terrorist attacks occurring throughout the country(Ghanem 2001; Stephan et al. 2004). The period, from the years 1998 to 2004,marked a critical geo-political context leading up to the second Palestinian Intifada,the peak of the conflict, and the beginnings of its recession. This division is reflectedin statistics showing that in the years 2000–2001, 47 people were killed in terroristattacks and 265 injured; in the years 2001–2002, 659 people were killed and 3888injured; in the period 2003–2004, 311 people were killed and 1445 injured. Further,against the ongoing background of hostilities and conflict, statistics show that withinIsrael, in the period 2000–2001 there were 4 suicide bombings, increasing to 95 inthe period 2001–2002, and decreasing to 34 in the years 2003–2004 (Israel Ministryof Foreign Affairs, 2007). These statistics present an objective indicator ofdivisibility of the 7 year period 1998–2004 into three major categories.

Exposure to the conflict was by no means restricted to adult life, but pervadedevery aspect of life, making children’s encounters with the tension and insecurityunavoidable. Statistics of the number of young people killed in the Intifada do notreflect the entire picture of their exposure to political violence. This extended fromloss of family members or friends, attending funerals and visiting injuredacquaintances in hospital and personal injury, through to a constant sense of fearwhen walking in the street or taking the bus, to security drills at school and even toinvasion into personal homes with media bombardment of graphic images ofdestruction and casualties from terrorist attacks in familiar neighborhood sites.

3 Effects of Political Violence and Conflict on Youth

Despite many studies examining psychological consequences of development in apolitically violent environment, emergent evidence has been equivocal. Findings fallalong a continuum with evidence of marked disturbance at one side and minimaleffect, and even resilience, at the opposite side.

On the side demonstrating damaging consequences, studies have indicated thatexposure to war and political violence frequently leads to developmental impairmentand psychiatric symptomatology, ranging from isolated symptoms to profiles ofdisorder (Allwood et al. 2002; Dyregrov et al. 2000; Muldoon 2004; Thabet et al.2002). On the opposite side of the continuum is evidence suggesting that childrenwho grow up in politically violent environments may exhibit surprising resilienceand successful adjustment (Barber 2009). In addition, recent approaches conceptu-alize response to trauma not only in terms of traditional mental health deficits, but in

Relations Between Political Violence Exposure and Impact 531

terms of post-traumatic growth defined as constructive cognitive processing oftrauma that alters schema and consolidates changed perspectives on self, others, andliving patterns (Tedeschi and Calhoun 1995). In terms of this conceptualization,trauma outcomes may be complex, manifesting parallel negative responses togetherwith positive post-trauma growth (Cryder et al. 2006).

Between these two poles, studies have produced a mixed picture of combinationsof risk and resilience factors and varying emotional and functional outcomes. Inaddition, in cases of evident pathology, symptomatology has been inconsistentacross studies ranging from symptoms such as anger and other externalizingbehaviors (Barber 2001; Muldoon 2004), depression (Barber 2001) to PTSD(Masinda and Muhesi 2004). This corpus of research questions earlier assumptionsof automatic severe impairment and indicates the complexity of determining effectsof political violence on youth.

Although research has captured the subjective meanings of growing up withpolitical violence and has yielded valuable data on the diverse effects of theseexperiences, the field has been impeded by numerous methodological difficulties.Several empirical obstacles are inherent to the content domain including theunpredictable and sporadic occurrence of political violence, the personal danger of insitu research, and definitions of research aims in a violent and changingenvironment. Possibly, due to these major obstacles, research has tended to centeron acute traumatic events and their consequences for children at the expense ofexaminations of effects of more protracted and chronic climates of political violence.Additionally, these methodological difficulties have restricted controlled, quantita-tive comparisons of exposure to and impact of political violence on children’s mentalhealth. In view of this, researchers have recently begun to acknowledge the pressingneed for the systematic study of the effects of chronic political violence on youth, ina manner that allows for comparative and longitudinal exploration (Muldoon 2004).

Study of exposure to endemic political violence necessitates a conceptualframework that acknowledges that an environment of violence usually cannot becaptured as a singular event in isolation or as a series of disparate events. Evenseemingly single acute events may be constituted by different traumatic experiencesuch as direct victimization, witnessing the event directly proximally or distally,witnessing indirectly via the media, or experiences of injury to family members orloss. Further, the accumulation of exposure may lead to a sum that is greater than itsparts. Various experiences of the same event under different circumstances mayproduce very different meanings and impact assigned to that event. Thus,quantification of exposure must take cognisance of both subtle variations of eachexposure for the child and multiple exposures. Factors such as differential previousexperiences, subjective meanings, cultural context, and different surroundingcircumstances complicate the attempt to determine the nature of exposure topolitical violence and its impact.

These issues highlight the need for a standardized, quantitative measure ofexposure to political violence, particularly in an environment in which it is endemicand chronic. The legitimacy of quantification of politically violent events in culturalstudies has been widely recognized and several culturally-specific checklists havebeen constructed for assessment (Dyregrov et al. 2000; Punamaki et al. 2001; Smithet al. 2002). As examples, in the area of refugee trauma studies, questionnaires


measuring event exposure and degree of subjective threat imposed by each eventhave recently been validated and successfully implemented (Hollifield et al. 2005).From a different content area, a study of former Tamil child soldiers from Sri Lankautilized an Exposure Scale for Child Soldiers to assess war-related experiences thatwas found to be valid and associated with psychological distress outcomes(Kanagaratnam et al. 2005).

The present research addresses many of these methodological issues andconceptualizations by presenting data obtained through the use of a scale constructedfor the purpose of measuring cumulated exposure to political violence. The researchmodel was developed by transporting a paradigm from Life Events methodology andits translation into applicability in the political sphere. The life events model studiesconsequences of adverse events by separating precipitant stressor from response bymeans of the quantification of social experiences (Monroe and Peterman 1988).Most life events research has relied on questionnaire or checklist methodology, withthe occurrence of life events conceptualized as the independent variable in theprediction of various psychological functioning indices (Cohen 1988). Within thisframework, political events could be construed as representing a special category oflife events that are located within a particular historical and cultural context andresult in collective experience. There seems to be no reason to oppose this extensionsince political events hold properties comparable to other personal or social lifeevents and, indeed, there may be some degree of overlap among them.

The Political Life Events scale (PLE), allowing for the quantification of politicalviolence exposure enabled assessment of adolescents’ exposure to a range oftraumatic events associated with direct and indirect victimization, threat, insecurityand loss of control within the chronically violent political environment in Israel. Thisscale aimed to assess both exposure to political life events and its perceived impact.The first aspect was an objective assessment of exposure represented as a calibratedmeasure of amount of events weighted according to their severity. The second aspectwas a subjective assessment of impact personally assigned to each eventexperienced. The inclusion of these two aspects in the same measure enabledquantification of both the number of politically violent experiences and theindividual impact assigned to them (Slone 1997).

The present study represents a 7 year research program of adolescents’ politicalviolence exposure and assigned impact of that exposure utilizing the Political LifeEvents scale in Israel. Given the particular geo-political context, the essence ofwhich consists of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and given the kinship, historical,and politico-national relation between the Israeli Arab population and thePalestinians, it could be assumed that the association between Israeli Arabs andthe Palestinian cause would affect both exposure to political life events across theIntifada exposure periods and moderate assigned impact to these events.

In terms of exposure, possible greater political activism among Arab Israeli youthwould lead to higher rates of exposure to political violence. In addition, theirminority status, confounded with suspected affiliation with the Palestinian cause bysecurity forces, could lead to more stringent security precautions, more severeharassment, and even violent clashes. An event that exemplifies this uneven balanceoccurred with rioting that spread through several Israeli Arab towns shortly after theoutbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada. This unrest was met with excessive


suppression by Israeli security forces, resulting in the death of 13 Arab Israeli youthand injury to many.

However, different attribution of meaning in the framework of possibleidentification with Palestinian aspirations could result in different patterns ofassignment of impact of politically violent events by Arab Israelis than their Jewishcounterparts. Ethnicity as a source of differences in impact appraisal to politicallyviolent events has been acknowledged although findings have been equivocal. Onone hand, Catholic adolescents in Ireland have been found to assign more impactthan Protestants to the same level of exposure (Muldoon et al. 1998). On the otherhand, a recent study of the constant threat of terrorism on Jewish and Arab Israeliadolescents found no differences between the two groups in stress reactions (Cohenand Eid 2007). Despite the value of these data, the present study expands the scopeof examination of exposure beyond terrorist attacks to encompass a comprehensivetypology of exposure and its impact, cumulatively over a substantial period.

The aims of the present research were two-fold. The first aim was to describe acomposite picture of Israeli adolescents’ exposure to political violence over a 7 yearperiod of changing political realities associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand to compare objective exposure with subjective appraisals of the impact of thatexposure. This 7 year period comprised a pre-Intifada period (1998–2000), the peakof the Intifada (2001–2002), and a recession period (2003–2004). In line with LifeEvents research that assumes an exposure—outcome correlation (Holmes and Rahe1967), the first hypothesis predicted that severity of exposure to political life eventswould be concordant with the impact assigned to that exposure. The second aim wasto examine whether ethnicity influences both exposure and subjective impact. In linewith this aim, a second hypothesis and an exploratory question were formulated. Thesecond hypothesis predicted higher rates of exposure among Arab than Jewish Israeliadolescents. The exploratory question related to possible ethnic differences inattribution of impact of exposure to political violence between Jewish and ArabIsraeli adolescents. No directional hypothesis could be formulated due to equivocalresearch findings, methodological differences across studies and plausible framingdifferences located in the particular nature of the conflict at the center of this study.

4 Method

4.1 Participants

Participants in this study were 3800 adolescents sampled in three different exposureperiods: pre-Intifada (n=1742), Intifada peak (n=1085), and Intifada recession(n=973), ranging in age from 10–18 (M=15.29, SD=1.80), and divided by gender(54% females, 46% males). In each exposure period, participants were sampled fromthe same Jewish-Arab co-existence cities in the same geographical regionsthroughout the country. In a cross-sectional design, different samples were assessedin each year of data collection. An attempt was made to preserve relative proportionsof Jewish and Arab participants that reflect general population proportions at eachexposure period, resulting in a total of 75.3% Jewish adolescents and 24.7% Arabadolescents.


In terms of demographic characteristics of the total research population,comparisons between Jewish and Arab participants revealed a minor age differencebetween Arab participants (M=15.86, SD=1.85) and Jewish participants (M=15.09,SD=1.74), t(1477.168)=−11.06, p<.001, across the entire research period, but nosignificant age differences in each sampling year. Comparisons of the twopopulations showed no differences on demographic characteristics of participants’educational level, parental educational levels, and socio-economic indicators.

4.2 Instruments

4.2.1 Political Life Events Scale (PLE)

Exposure to political violence was measured by means of the Political Life Eventsscale (Slone 1997) containing 20 items that participants were requested to mark forexposure over the past 6 months. Two scores were derived from this scale—aSeverity score and an Impact score.

For the Severity score, items marked positive or negative for exposure werescored according to pre-set weightings. In order to reflect increases in the severity ofevents, item calibration on the PLE Scale had been calculated in a series of pretests,according to valuations of event severity by adolescents, independent of the studyand representative of the target sample demographic composition, on the basis oftheir personal and vicarious experiences. Participants in the pre-test were 140 Jewishand Arab Israeli youth residing in mixed Arab-Jewish cities similar in demographiccomposition to those of the final research samples. These participants were requestedto evaluate items on a scale of 1 to 3, as mild, moderate or severe items according totheir perception of the severity of the experience, irrespective of individual actualexposure to the events. Averages of these evaluations were calculated to produceitem weightings according to the formula: mild items (e.g. Staying in a bombshelter) were multiplied by 1, items categorized as moderate (e.g. Absence of a closefamily member due to military or political circumstances) were multiplied by 2, anditems categorized as severe (e.g. Injury to a close family member as a result ofpolitical or military circumstances) were multiplied by 3. This computation producesa score range of 0 (no exposure) to 41 (exposure to all items). Generalized weightingon the basis of personal or vicarious experience is an acceptable scoring system forlife events (Paykel et al. 1971) although it cannot address the unavoidable limitationof inability to identify the exact items from which the total score is derived. The PLEitems and severity weightings appear in Table 2.

For the Impact score, participants were requested to assess their subjectiveperception of the impact of each event to which they had been exposed on a 1(verylittle impact on me)—5 (very high impact on me) Likert scale. The Impact score wascomputed as the sum of assigned ratings to reflect the total impact of all events towhich a participant had been exposed, producing a score range of 0 (no impact) to100 (impact rated as 5 on all items). This was preferable to an average score thatwould not reflect higher impact according to greater number of exposed events. Itemweightings were not included in computation in order to reflect participants’personal and subjective perceptions of impact, irrespective of objective appraisals ofevent severity as assessed by the independent judges. Whereas the Severity score


reflects objective exposure to an event, the Impact score reflects the possibility ofdifferent subjective perceptions of the same objective event by different individualsor groups.

There is no justification to calculate an internal consistency score for PLE, since thereis no theoretical rationale to expect consistency in exposure to discrete political lifeevents. Validity studies assessing cross-nationality transferability for the PLE scale haveyielded good psychometric properties. In two studies comparing exposure to politicallife events between Jewish and Arab Israeli adolescents and Jewish Israeli andPalestinian adolescents from Gaza prior to the second Intifada, the PLE scalesuccessfully differentiated between groups in line with the hypotheses, demonstratinggood discriminant validity (Slone et al. 1998). Similarly, from a different conflict zone,in a study hypothesizing greater exposure to political violence for Black than WhiteSouth African adolescents post-Apartheid, the PLE scale demonstrated support for thehypothesis indicating its discriminant validity (Slone et al. 2000). These validitystudies support the cross-nationality transferability of the PLE scale, enabling itsutilization as a standard for comparison of cross-cultural exposure and its impact.

4.2.2 Life Events Scale

Personal trauma history, unrelated to political violence, was measured by means of alife events scale constructed for the study. This scale was comprised of 10 itemsrepresenting negative personal and social events to which adolescents could beexposed; for example, serious illness, accident, parents’ divorce, which subjectsmarked positive or negative for exposure. The total score was comprised of thenumber of items marked for exposure. Comparisons showed no significantdifferences in general negative life events between Jewish and Arab adolescentsboth within and across the three exposure periods.

4.3 Procedure

After receiving relevant authorization from the University Helsinki EthicsCommittee, Ministry of Education, and informed written consent from parents,adolescents in Junior and High schools in the allocated research regions of thecountry were administered the questionnaires. During the 7 year research period,questionnaires were administered in the same regions to Arab and Jewish children ineach of the three exposure periods by Arab and Jewish experimenters respectively.All participants completed the questionnaires in their home language. In order tolimit the time frame reference of participants’ reports of severity and impact to aspecific year and to achieve concurrent data collection across the geographicalregions, all data collection took place between the months of August to October inall areas, in each consecutive year.

5 Results

The first aim of the study was to present a composite picture of political violenceexposure over the research period. These descriptive data are presented in Table 1.


Beyond reports of exposure to at least one event in each category (mild, moderateand severe), in order to describe trends over the 7 year period, total scores forcumulative PLE severity and impact were computed per year. These trends arepresented in Fig. 1.

For the years 1998–2000, the trends of PLE severity and impact are similarshowing an initial increase between the years 1998 to 1999 and then a decrease until2000. From 2001 until 2002, exposure to political violence increased as reflected bythe PLE severity. However, the impact assigned to this exposure during this perioddecreased. For the years 2003–2004, the PLE severity score reflects decreasingexposure to political violence but the Impact score shows an initial decrease in 2003and then an increase in the year 2004. Thus, as Fig. 1 depicts, the distributions ofPLE severity and impact were not always concordant with each other.

In order to examine the first hypothesis in light of the actual variations in theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, the 7 year period was categorized into three exposureperiods: pre-Intifada (1998–2000), Intifada peak (2001–2002), and receding Intifada(2003–2004). The first hypothesis predicted that both PLE severity and PLE impactwill show the same pattern of a rise from the pre-Intifada to the peak Intifada periodsand then a descent to the receding Intifada period. Implied in this is the assumptionthat exposure period would affect PLE severity and impact in the same manner.

The hypothesis was examined using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) withperiod of exposure as the independent variable and PLE severity as the dependent

Table 1 Rates of exposure to at least one mild, moderate or severe political life event according to years

Years of exposure

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

n=169 n=728 n=845 n=428 n=657 n=475 n=498

Mild events 99% 95% 96% 98% 98% 100% 99%

n=168 n=691 n=811 n=419 n=644 n=475 n=493

Moderate events 83% 85% 85% 97% 85% 95% 90%

n=141 n=619 n=718 n=415 n=558 n=451 n=448

Severe events 42% 66% 62% 55% 61% 99% 66%

n=71 n=480 n=524 n=235 n=401 n=470 n=329

Fig. 1 PLE severity and impact across the seven year period 1998–2004


variable, and an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with period of exposure as theindependent variable, PLE impact as the dependent variable, and Life Events as thecovariate. There seemed no justification to enter personal life events as a covariate intoanalysis when using PLE severity as the dependent variable which reflects objectiveexposure to political violence. However, when using PLE impact as the dependentvariable, it was necessary to partial out the influence of personal life events, since thePLE impact score reflects the subjective impact assigned to exposure.

In contrast to the first hypothesis, the relation between exposure period and PLEseverity and impact indicated an opposite pattern. For PLE severity, results showedan increase from the pre-Intifada (M=10.87, SD=7.10) to the peak Intifada period(M=12.14, SD=8.41) and then a decrease to the receding Intifada period (M=10.49,SD=4.60), F(2, 3797)=16.68, p<.001, η2=.16. Scheffe post hoc tests revealed thatthe only significant difference in the PLE severity scores emerged between theIntifada peak and both other periods, p<.001. For PLE impact, no significantdifference emerged between the pre-Intifada (M=18.68, SD=13.92), the peakIntifada period (M=17.79, SD=12.02), and the receding Intifada period (M=18.55,SD=7.74), F(2, 3708)=2.42, p=.09, η2=.09. These patterns are presented in Fig. 2.

No significant interactions emerged between ethnic group, gender, exposureperiod, PLE severity and impact or between ethnic group, age, exposure period, PLEseverity and impact, making the variables of gender and age irrelevant as possibleexplanatory variables.

In order to examine the second hypothesis and the exploratory question, weconducted a 2 (ethnic group: Jewish, Arab) × 3 (exposure period) analysis ofvariance (ANOVA) for PLE severity and a 2 (ethnic group; Jewish Arab) × 3(exposure period) analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with personal life events as acovariate for PLE impact.

In line with the second hypothesis predicting a higher rates of exposure for Arabthan Jewish Israeli adolescents, a main effect emerged for ethnic group on PLEseverity with higher levels for Arab adolescents (M=13.58, SD=8.30) than forJewish adolescents (M=10.28, SD=6.14), F(1, 3717)=45.06, p<.001, η2=.12. Inorder to elaborate the basis of this cross-ethnic difference in exposure, difference inproportion of response to each PLE item according to ethnic group is presented inTable 2.

These data demonstrate that for most items, Arab adolescents reportedsignificantly greater exposure than Jewish adolescents. Out of the five items on

Fig. 2 PLE severity and impact across three exposure periods: Pre-intifada, intifada peak, and receding intifada


which Jewish adolescents reported higher levels of exposure, four were mild eventsand one was a moderate event. Exposure to both more events and greater severity ofthe events for Arab adolescents explains the significant cross-ethnic difference inPLE severity.

In addition to findings for PLE severity, for PLE impact, Arab adolescentsshowed higher levels (M=23.79, SD=15.11) than for Jewish adolescents (M=16.46,SD=9.94), F(1,3648)=45.31, p<.001, η2=.12.

For the moderating role of ethnic group on both PLE severity and impact over thethree Intifada periods, no interaction emerged between ethnicity and exposure periodfor PLE severity F(2, 3717)=2.47, p=.085, η2=.01. However, for PLE impact, aninteraction effect did emerge between ethnicity and exposure period F(2, 3648)=

Table 2 Difference in proportion of exposure to each PLE item according to ethnicity

Item Jewish Arab Difference

A security drill at school1 85% 62% t(3721)=12.83**

Time spent in a security shelter2 52% 49% t(3721)=1.90

A security check when entering a public place(for example, a shopping centre)1

79% 42% t(3721)=23.02**

Presence in a situation where there is a suspected dangerousexplosive1

77% 32% t(3721)=27.01**

Harm to property as a result of terrorism or political violence2 1% 22% t(3721)=−3.77**Exposure to gunshot or the use of other weapons or explosives3 20% 21% t(3721)=−0.80Absence of a family member for an extended period dueto military or political involvement2

39% 11% t(3721)=16.17**

Participation in a violent political demonstration2 19% 40% t(3721)=−12.78**Witnessing a violent political demonstration1 21% 54% t(3721)=−19.60**Knowing someone who was involved in a violent politicaldemonstration1

31% 70% t(3721)=−21.44**

Exposure to acts of terrorism of political violence throughthe news on television or in newspapers1

66% 25% t(3721)=23.24**

Victim of an act of terrorism or political violence3 6% 14% t(3721)=−7.72**Witnessing an act of terrorism or political violence3 24% 36% t(3721)=−7.20**Knowing someone who has been witness to an act of terrorismor political violence2

33% 43% t(3721)=−4.94**

Death of a family member as a result of political or militaryviolence or terrorism3

9% 22% t(3721)=−10.14**

Death of a friend or acquaintance as a result of political or militaryviolence or terrorism3

28% 46% t(3721)=−10.20**

Injury to a family member as a result of military or politicalviolence or terrorism3

13% 22% t(3721)=−6.78**

Injury to a friend or acquaintance as a result of military or politicalviolence or terrorism2

27% 37% t(3721)=−5.32**

Confiscation of the family’s land3 3% 30% t(3721)=−26.34**Confiscation of land of an acquaintance2 3% 38% t(3721)=−33.35**

1=Mild event, 2=Moderate event, 3=Severe event.

* p<.05, ** p<.001.


8.58, p<.001, η2=.18. Scheffe post hoc analyses revealed the source of thisinteraction. From the pre-Intifada to peak Intifada periods, Arab adolescents showedno difference in PLE impact p=.94 as opposed to Jewish adolescents who showed asignificant increase in PLE impact p<.001. These results indicate that for Jewishadolescents, an increase in PLE severity was associated with increased PLE impact,but for Arab adolescents the increase in PLE severity was not associated with anincrease in PLE impact. These results are presented in Fig. 3.

6 Discussion

This study had two aims. The first aim was to construct a composite picture of Israeliadolescents’ exposure to political violence over a 7 year period preceding and duringthe second Palestinian Intifada marked by unprecedented political violence andterrorism. In line with this aim, we examined fluctuations in exposure to politicalviolence and its assigned impact across three categories of this period—pre-Intifada,Intifada peak, and receding Intifada—using a Political Life Events model.

The descriptive data revealed a disturbing reality of high levels of chronicexposure to a wide array of politically violent events. Almost all adolescentsreported exposure to at least one mild event, high numbers to at least one moderateevent, and more than half the participants to at least one very severe event. By itsvery nature of being a negative life event scale, the PLE is comprised of events thatare notably deleterious. This means that, even the mild items in the scale, representevents that are difficult in isolation and more difficult when encounteredcumulatively. For example, security checks on entering every public place, frequentsecurity drills of sudden evacuation of the classroom to bomb shelters, intensivemedia coverage of terrorism and violent political events, all of which appear as milditems in the scale, create a reality of life of ubiquitous reminder of the politicalsituation. The items categorized as severe in the scale represent extremely traumaticexperiences of direct involvement in terror attacks, personal injury, direct familyinjuries or loss, producing an environment of magnified risk for emotional anddevelopmental impairment.

Only a methodology that enables both the quantification of varying severity ofnoxious political events and cumulative exposure in an endemically politicallyviolent environment can portray this climate in a detailed and comprehensivemanner simultaneously. This conceptualization has recently received increased

Fig. 3 PLE severity and impact across three exposure periods by ethnic group


recognition in research on refugees’ war traumas (Hollifield et al. 2005; Punamaki etal. 2001). Political Life Event methodology that was utilized in the current studyaddressed both these criteria, hence providing a description of the ecological contextof adolescent development over an extended conflict period.

This methodology attained increased validity with our findings of compatibilitybetween self-reported exposure to political life events on the PLE scale and actualoccurrence of events antecedent, during and in recession of the second PalestinianIntifada. PLE severity findings over the 7 year period reflected the instability of theIsraeli political environment and the ways in which this insecurity pertained to theexperience of adolescence.

In view of the cross-cultural relevance of the study, it is illuminating to describeseparately the differential experience of Jewish and Arab adolescents in Israel interms of their exposure to political violence. Findings of the study and generalstatistics (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2007) have shown that, over the 7 yearconflict period, Jewish adolescents were more exposed to eroding daily insecurityand tension, victimization in terrorist attacks, and losses from family members’involvement in military activity whereas Arab adolescents were more exposed toinvolvement in violent demonstrations and destruction of property. The PLE Scale,constructed prior to the Intifada, could not foresee the catastrophic rise in terrorismto come, and therefore items did not clearly differentiate between political violenceand terrorism, possibly accounting for some of our descriptive statistics.

The first hypothesis of the study predicted a difference in both PLE severity andimpact over the three exposure periods such that both measures would be higher atthe Intifada peak than at both the pre-Intifada and receding Intifada periods forwhich no difference was predicted. Results for this hypothesis produced aninteresting finding. In line with the hypothesis, for PLE severity, results showedthe highest scores at the Intifada peak and lower scores at both the pre-Intifada andreceding Intifada periods between which there was no significant difference.However, for PLE impact, in unexpected contrast to the hypothesis, findingsshowed the lowest scores at the Intifada peak, producing a mirror image of thepattern for PLE severity.

This discrepancy stands in contrast to general life event models that assumeconcordance between objective exposure and subjective appraisals of exposure(Pilkonis et al. 1985). Our findings of discordance raise the question of the basicdifference between general life events and political life events. One possibleexplanation could lie in a fundamental difference between general life eventappraisal that could be influenced by individual attribution of meaning, and politicallife events that could be influenced also by formalized ideological systems. From theperspective of ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner 1989) appraisals of general lifeevents could be considered to belong mainly to the personal domain, whereasappraisals of political negative life events could be considered to extend to the levelof social, cultural and institutional ecological systems. This theorizing does notobviate the moderating influence of other ecological systems that interact with bothpersonal and political life events, but it does focus attention on the influence ofideology as a particular difference between personal and political life events.

The second aim was to examine whether ethnicity influences both exposure andsubjective impact and in line with the second hypothesis, findings showed that Arab


Israeli adolescents were more exposed to political life events than their Jewishcounterparts. For PLE severity across the Intifada periods, the pattern for both Araband Jewish Israeli adolescents exhibited the highest level of exposure during theIntifada peak and lower levels at the antecedent and receding Intifada periods.

For the exploratory question related to possible ethnic differences in attribution ofimpact of exposure to political violence between Jewish and Arab Israeliadolescents, an interaction effect emerged between ethnic group and period ofexposure. For Jewish adolescents, PLE severity and impact were compatible withincreases in PLE severity at the Intifada peak aligned with increases in PLE impact.However, for Arab adolescents, PLE severity and impact were not compatible withincreases in PLE severity at the Intifada peak associated with unchanging PLEimpact.

These findings raise two issues; first, Arab adolescents’ higher levels of exposureto political life events and second, their unchanging PLE impact despite increasinglevels of exposure. Both these issues point to the very particular status of ArabIsraeli adolescents within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This conflictis characterized by two peoples striving for independent nationhood—on one hand,the Israelis who have been living as an independent state for over 50 years, on theother hand, the Palestinians who still aspire for independent statehood andrecognition of their nationality and identity.

With this constellation, the Arab Israelis find themselves in a torn position ofallegiance both to their Israeli citizenship and to their historical, familial, and culturalPalestinian affiliation. At the base of their status as Israeli citizens, Arab Israelis havean overlapping mix of different identities including Israeli, Arab, Palestinian, andreligious affiliation (Halabi and Sonnenschein 2004; Suleiman 2004). The complexgeo-political context of the Middle East produces a clash between these fouridentities. On the one hand, there could be a desire to preserve Arab culturalheritage, history and language, non-Jewish religious affiliation, and alliance with thePalestinian cause and family kinship. On the other hand, Arab Israeli citizenshipentails striving for equal civil rights within the Jewish Israeli state. These twocounterpoint identity components would produce a precarious identity.

In understanding these results, the theory of identity framing is relevant since itallows analysis of ways in which identities and group affiliation may influenceperspectives and response to a conflict (Gray 2003). In circumstances in whichidentity is threatened or challenged through conflict, group affiliation may becomecrucially salient in reinforcing a sense of security. Parties tend to avoid situations inwhich their identity is challenged, threatened, rebuked or debased and to seek outand preserve other settings that favor their identity state by withdrawing ordissociating from one referent ethnic group and transferring affiliation to anothergroup. This affiliation may easily produce a set of lenses or filters through which theconflict is framed (Rothman 1997).

It is plausible to trace a path between the non-cohesive identity components ofArab Israeli adolescents and at least partial ideological identification with Palestiniannational aspirations. Precisely at the peak of the Intifada that represents the height ofPalestinian armed struggle for nationhood, the Palestinian affiliated identitycomponent of Arab Israeli multi-identity could become most salient. Sinceidentification processes are intricately woven with attribution of meaning, salience


of the Palestinian component of Arab Israeli identity would produce a frame throughwhich events are interpreted. Specifically, political life events draw particularinterpretations and meanings based on ideology. Even increased exposure to politicallife events could be met with ideology that results in moderated impact.

The different perspectives of Jewish and Arab Israeli adolescents toward theconflict could explain the difference in assigned impact to increasing levels ofexposure. For Arab adolescents, the link forged between exposure to negativepolitical events and the Palestinian cause could detract from the negativity assignedto the events. For Jewish adolescents, identification with the Israeli side couldexplain the concordance between the severity of exposure and the negative impactassigned to it. Arab and Jewish Israeli adolescents could have very differentexperiences of the conflict and this would affect their interpretations of thelegitimacy of acts of violence by both sides and, in turn, the impact assigned tothese acts.

One of the limitations of this study was the lack of inclusion of a measure ofsource and strength of ethnic affiliation for the Arab and Jewish samples. It isrational to assume that the classification of the two ethnic groups is an adequateproxy, however, confirmation of the above interpretation of the results wouldnecessitate a measure of identity strength and commitment. Future studies shouldinclude a measure of ethnic or community identification and strength of ideologicalcommitment.

In addition to the psycho-political dimension, the findings of the study areinterpretable from a developmental perspective. Growing up in a politicallyconflicted environment produces a unique symbiosis between personal develop-mental tasks and constraints of the social environment. The period of adolescencemarked by tasks of self-autonomy, social role consolidation, and identity formationare compounded when they occur within a conflicted environment. Despite commonelements, these tasks will attain different connotations for Jewish and Arabadolescents such that Arab adolescents’ greater involvement could manifest in morepolitical activity. The collective Palestinian struggle for autonomy and nationhood isinseparable from personal striving for autonomy and identity consolidation. Thesefactors together could manifest in greater political engagement and, thereby, accountfor higher exposure levels to political life events among Arab adolescents. A similarfinding and interpretation has been advanced in research from a slightly differentcontext of comparisons of hopefulness among Palestinian and Israeli Jewish highschool students (Sagy and Adwan 2006). In this study, Palestinian adolescentsexhibited higher levels of collective wishes despite more severe exposure to politicalviolence during the second Intifada than their Israeli Jewish counterparts, interpretedas deriving from their greater active engagement and resulting personal pride.

The inferences posed here represent an attempt to explain the findings from apsycho-political and developmental perspective. However, no claims can be madefor the exclusivity of these inferences and interpretations from other possibleperspectives that may be as defensible. Further, the focus on adolescence in thisstudy restricts all interpretations to this developmental period and precludesgeneralization of these results to other age groups.

Although a large-scale, multi-period study of this nature yielded interesting andvaluable data, substantial logistical difficulties contained sampling procedure


limitations. First, the choice to focus on the primary majority-minority division, Jewsand Arabs, excluded the many varied additional ethnic groups comprising Israelisociety. Second, the need to match Jewish and Arab participants on demographic andsocio-economic parameters limited subject selection to large urban mixed cities,excluding rural and ethnically homogeneous residential locations. Thus, although thestudy yielded a broad panorama of growing up in Israel over a critical 7 year period,these limitations make this only a rough template that should be extended in furtherstudies. Adoption of life event methodology in the political sphere enabled objectivequantification of the significant exposure of adolescents over this period. Theassessment of impact is more complex and cannot be measured solely by personalattribution but should be augmented with other outcome measurements.

Nonetheless, the ambitious attempt to represent the experience of adolescencewithin an extended politically turbulent environment in a quantified study yieldedsubstantial and interesting data. Developmental implications attest to the significantexposure of adolescents to political life events during this unstable period anddemonstrate ways in which adolescent experience reflects the vagaries of conflictconditions, producing in a sense a seismograph of the political climate. Finally,psychological implications show the intricate and complex relation betweenexposure to negative events and their personally and socially constructed meanings.

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