Following the work of Mr. Loewenthal, BMI fellows were tasked with providing historical, geopolitical, and analytical perspectives on political violence, reconstruction, and post-conflict development. In addition, they have offered medium- and long-term policy recommendations for Gaza’s reconstruction. A draft of this so-called Gaza Marshall Plan was submitted in April and revised by May. A chapter on the history of political violence in the Palestinian national movement will be submitted shortly.

For the first time in the last 20 years support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has dropped below 50%. In tandem the alternative of a one-state solution is growing in popularity. It is clear that innovative approaches are needed in order to break the cycle of violence– as past experience shows that intractable conflicts are in fact solvable. Dr. Rosner’s research suggests an innovative approach, looking at an often-ignored aspect of the conflict: gender. In doing so he also takes into account previous work by Prof. Bar-Tal who argues that there are two narratives concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which fight for dominance: one which sees the conflict as never-ending and unsolvable and one which values compromise and sees peace as possible.  Using data collected as part of the monthly Peace Index surveys leads to the conclusion that women are more likely to support peace negotiations and political compromise. Regarding support for the Oslo Accords, the more Israel is entangled in conflict the more pronounced the difference between women and men becomes. In fact, after rigorous examination of each month’s data, including regression analysis to account for political and religious affiliation, it became evident that the difference between genders was much more frequent after 2001– the period of the Second Intifada. The conclusion is that in intractable conflicts women support a peace agreement slightly more than men. Nevertheless, the socio-cultural and geopolitical context is tremendously important for fully understanding the correlation.

This research provides insight into the role economic inequality and other economic conditions play in political conflicts. Many political conflicts, both violent and non-violent, from the Arab Spring to the Brexit, are attributed to economic grievance. A global phenomenon has developed: political radicalization in an environment of rising intra-country inequality and economic resentment by people who feel left behind. However, existing studies focus on cross-country analysis and do not study the effect of economic inequality on political radicalization. This is the first research project to address these issues. Mr. Lowenthal has analysed the conflict-inequality nexus within the scope of a single political entity, using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (IPC)– one of the longest lasting political conflicts– as a case study.

In the past year Mr. Rothler studied the socio-economic impact of irrigation usage on farmers. In particular, he analyzed the connection between irrigation cover rates and farmer suicide rates. The results of his research indicate that a higher rate of irrigation is directly related to lower farmer suicide rates. In contrast to this, irrigation cover does not have any significant relationship to suicides among other occupational groups. This provides strong evidence that the effect of irrigation cover on suicides is driven by factors related to farming. Further analysis reveals that most of the demonstrated effect is related to variation in canal irrigation cover, rather than well irrigation. This distinction is important because canal irrigation is more favourably distributed among small and marginal farmers, while well irrigation is more advantageous to larger farmers