New Study Touts Efficacy of House Demolitions in Deterring Terror
Ahuva Balofsky : Dec 12, 2014
Breaking Israel News
It is also hoped—and indeed, has been known to play out—that those same families would be incentivized to turn in their potential terrorist relatives to protect themselves and their homes. Finally, demolitions are meant to undermine the culture of celebrating terror by bringing it home to the community.
A study initiated in 2008, whose final conclusions will be published next month in the Journal of Politics, offers definitive evidence that Israel's policy of terrorist home demolitions in fact helps deter future terror attacks. This is in sharp contrast to widely publicized beliefs which claim no less than an Israeli military study concluded the opposite before putting the country's home demolition policy on hold in 2005. (Photo: Israeli police stand near an excavator as it demolishes the family house of a Palestinian who had killed three Israelis when he went on a rampage in a construction tractor last June, on April 7, 2009 in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher. Smashing vehicles and overturning a bus with his machinery, he killed three people and injured 45 others, before he was shot dead/Kobi Gideon / FLASH90)
The study was conducted by Efraim Benmelech, a professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, and Hebrew University economists Claude Berrebi and Esteban Klor, and reported on by Yishai Schwartz of The New Republic magazine.
The trio collected data on home demolitions and terror attacks from the period of the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Receiving "zero help from any government agency", according to Benmelech, they had to rely on reports from Palestinian sources, human rights group B'tzelem, and publicly available Israeli security information.
Differentiating between "precautionary demolitions" and "punitive demolitions", the authors found a "48.7 percent increase in the number of suicide terrorists from an average district" in response to precautionary demolitions, but an 11.7 and 14.9 percent decrease in attacks in the months following punitive demolitions.
The logic behind the policy is to give potential suicide bombers reason for pause before carrying out their plans. It follows that a terrorist planning a suicide mission does not fear bodily harm or death, so something else must be added to the stake to deter them. That something is potential harm to their families.
It is also hoped—and indeed, has been known to play out—that those same families would be incentivized to turn in their potential terrorist relatives to protect themselves and their homes. Finally, demolitions are meant to undermine the culture of celebrating terror by bringing it home to the community.
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