Economic analysis of the Palestinian second intifada (Israel)

The first chapter explains the magnitude of human suffering from the intifada in the Palestinian Territories. Large numbers of people were killed during the intifada and most of them were in their productive years. The Israeli military incursions and policy of closures increased hunger among Palestinian children to a level above that experienced by children in Somalia and Bangladesh. Israel has seriously curtailed the availability of health services to the Palestinians, and displaced a large number of them by aggressive destruction of homes and the unearthing of agricultural land.; In the second chapter, I examine whether dismal economic conditions are related to the level of political violence by Palestinians. Using data from 1992--2002 on Palestinian attacks against Israelis, the count data regressions suggest a significant positive correlation between the Palestinian unemployment rate and the number of suicide, shooting, and total attacks. Similarly, I find a significant negative correlation between Palestinian real GNP per capita and the various types of attacks. I also gathered information on Palestinian suicide bombers that I later use to suggest an alternative hypothesis of why young educated Palestinians would chose to carry out suicide attacks.; In the third chapter, I analyze the impact of the Palestinian second intifada on tourism in Israel. For this purpose, I employed two time-series models. The first is the "interrupted time-series" or "intervention" model. The second is a "transfer function" model. The intervention model suggests that the impact of the intifada on tourism in Israel was immediate without delay. Tourism abruptly declined right after the onset of the intifada. As a result of the violence in September 2000, Israel lost one third of its tourist arrivals which I estimate to have cost the Israeli economy around {dollar}2.1 billion. On the other hand, the transfer function model indicated that a suicide attack incident will reduce tourism by 5 percent in the month following the attack. However, tourism usually recovers seven months after the suicide attack but remains permanently below the pre-attack level.; Chapter four presents statistics on the social and economic background of Palestinian militants, including suicide bombers, killed during the second intifada.