Peace-building with the hawks: Attitude change of Jewish-Israeli hawks and doves following dialogue encounters with Palestinians

This research examines the effect of initial political affiliation (hawks or doves) of Jewish-Israeli youth on attitudes toward planned contact with Palestinians and examines the extent of change in attitudes of these youth toward Palestinians following the intergroup contact. It was hypothesized that Jewish-Israeli hawks will show less favorable attitudes towards these encounters, indicating less motivation to participate in them and lower satisfaction with these encounters. It was also hypothesized that attitude change following the encounter with Palestinians will be smaller for hawks than for doves. These hypotheses were examined by attitude questionnaires completed by Jewish-Israeli hawks and doves both before and after participation in the encounter. In line with the first hypothesis, hawks expressed less favorable attitudes toward the encounter than doves. However, in contrast to the predictions of the second hypothesis, the findings of this study indicated that while doves showed no attitude change following the encounter, hawks' attitudes toward Palestinians became significantly more favorable after participating in the intergroup dialogue.