Israel V The Terrorists: Assessing The Effectiveness Of Suicide Attacks And Targeted Killings
The Shape of Things to Come? Assessing the Effectiveness of Suicide Attacks and Targeted Killings – by David A. Jaeger, Daniele Paserman:
In this paper we assess the effectiveness of suicide attacks and targeted killings in the Second Intifada. We find evidence that the targeted killings of Palestinian leaders by Israel reduce realized Palestinian violence. We find, however, that intended Palestinian violence is increasing at low levels of targeted killings, but decreasing at higher levels. There is little evidence to suggest that suicide bombings against Israelis reduce the number of subsequent Palestinian fatalities. Rather, we find that suicide attacks that kill at least one Israeli lead to subsequent increased incidence and levels of Palestinian fatalities. Our results do not support the notion that suicide attacks and targeted killings follow the “tit-for-tat” pattern that is commonly postulated in the literature.
As this writer notes:
However, although Israeli attacks reduce actual Palestinian violence, they increase intended violence – unsuccessful suicide attacks and the like – if the attacks are mild. The authors estimate that intended Palestinian violence rises if there are up to 3.3 targeted Israeli killings the previous month, but falls thereafter.
This suggests that a tough Israeli response works, but a moderate one doesn’t.
The bigger lesson is that suicide bombing is just a bad military strategy.
But the problem is that suicide bombers might, to use Nozick’s distinction, be pursuing symbolic utility rather than causal utility.
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Posted: 5th, July 2007 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
