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Youth involvement in radicalization and terrorism activity has increased over the last decade. The present study aimed to determine whether minor lone-actor terrorists feature unique individual characteristics, and identify situational factors related to these attacks. A comparative analysis was conducted with 83 minors and 82 mature lone-actor terrorists in Israel who committed terrorist attacks between January 2015 and December 2016. Results indicated significant differences between underage and adult lone-actor terrorists in three of the four "pillars of opportunity" (target, training, and facilitating conditions), as well as in the death toll. These findings suggest close affinities between the socio-psychological needs and challenges youth face in their adolescence phase and their modus operandi for terror acts. We discussed these findings in the context of existing research on youth radicalism and lone-actor terrorism, offering further directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palestinian women have played an increasingly active role in terrorist activities in the past two decades as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The present study aims to examine differences in the characteristics of female Palestinian terrorists and in the patterns of their terrorist activity between the Second Intifada and the Third Intifada. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of male Palestinian terrorist activity between the two Intifada periods was conducted in order to explore whether trends in female terrorist activity were unique to women or reflected global trends. Data are based on 171 female and male Palestinians that carried out terrorist activities. The findings show that age, terrorist method and organizational affiliation correlate significantly with the Intifada period. Significant differences were not found in the main motive for female terrorist activity. The analysis shows that overall trends of Palestinian female terrorist characteristics and their involvement in terrorism were similar to those of male terrorists. Moreover, during the Third Intifada female terrorists mainly acted alone, reflecting the current growing global trend of lone-actor terrorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To examine the impact of terrorism threat on the media framing of police legitimacy. Methods: A quasi-experimental, interrupted time-series design. The study analyzed press coverage of police legitimacy before and during the course of the Second Intifada in Israel between the years 1998 and 2007. Examination of the coverage of legitimacy was based on the framework of Tyler's process-based model, which evaluated data from 2,600 press reports culled from three major dailies in Israel. Results: The first period of the Second Intifada was found to have a significant and positive effect on the coverage of police legitimacy. Following the outbreak of the Second Intifada, there was a significant increase in media portrayals of public trust and confidence in the police. Conclusions: The study provides new insight into the role of the media in shaping legitimacy under conditions of high terrorism threats. The results suggest that in the face of the highest level of terrorist attacks, the media stress coverage of public trust. Moreover, by underscoring the effectiveness of the police in counterterrorism policing, and in some cases even portraying the police force as heroic, the media reinforce police legitimacy. Future research is needed in this field. Expanding the analysis to additional variables such as the government view of the police and police spokespeople's strategies will enhance existing knowledge on the media coverage of police legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies dealing with the effects of security stress (e.g., stress caused by war or terrorist attacks) on crime rates have tended to focus on violent crime in general. This article adds to the existing literature by extending the focus to the effect of security and economic stressors during the Second Intifada in Israel on intimate femicide. In addition, the study investigates temporal patterns in the representation of intimate femicide rates among various groups in Israeli society. The results show that during the Second Intifada, intimate femicide rates among immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union were significantly higher than in the preintifada period. Furthermore, the findings indicate that intimate femicide committed with a firearm among immigrants significantly increased during the course of the intifada period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Designed as a field quasi-experiment, this study analyzes the differences in Jewish adolescent crime rates before and after the inception of the second Intifada (September, 2000). Data covers the years between 1996 and 2003. The study focused on the relationship between the number of terrorist acts, the number of deaths in these acts, economic changes, and crime rates (murder, manslaughter, assault, mugging and robbery and property-related). The findings of the study were analyzed in terms of current theories on the impact of social and security-related stress on adolescents. The results show that the second Intifada has had significant effects on male adolescent crime rates. In particular, the number of terrorist acts was significantly associated with the following offences: assault, robbery, and manslaughter. No significant differences were found for adolescent female crime rates. Economic changes were significantly negatively related both to male adolescent crime for all the offences studied, as well as to property-related female offences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]