Intergroup Communication as a Predictor of Jewish-Israeli Agreement with Integrative Solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: The Mediating Effects of out-Group Trust and Guilt

The goal of this study is to empirically determine the extent to which controlled intergroup communicative contact—such as structured intergroup meetings between Israeli-Jews and Palestinians—increases the propensity for peaceful conflict resolution. The proposed model in this study was tested on public opinion data from a representative sample of Israeli-Jews using structural equation modeling. The model was successful in explaining variations in Jewish-Israeli out-group trust (R2= .24, R= .49) and in predicting agreement with integrative compromise solutions (R2= .55, R= .74). In line with the hypotheses, we found that Jewish-Israeli participation in structured intergroup meetings with Palestinians is associated with increased agreement with integrative compromise solutions and that this association is significantly and highly mediated by out-group trust. However, contrary to our expectations, Jewish-Israeli guilt toward Palestinians was not significantly associated with participation in intergroup meetings or with agreement with integrative compromise solutions. The findings are discussed in light of recent theorizing and research on deliberative communication and intergroup contact.

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