Re-evaluating the impact of collective victimhood on conflict attitudes: Results from a natural experiment, a survey experiment, and panel study using Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day

A significant observational literature identifies a link between collective victimhood and conflict-enhancing attitudes, though results from experimental work increasing victimhood's salience vary. This article thus revisits this question in two studies in a context in which increased salience is especially likely to shift attitudes. Study 1 exploits the happenstance fielding of 12 surveys over Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day between 1979 and 2021. Using all 192 available estimates assessing hawkishness, preferences for out-group exclusion, and in-group solidarity, it fails to detect statistically significant effects of a state-led effort to increase the salience of Israel's collective victimhood narrative in a natural setting 90% of the time. Study 2 replicates the null findings across multiple comparisons and outcomes in a companion harmonized panel and survey experiment. Substantively, the findings suggest that it may be harder to use short-term manipulations of collective victimhood to shift attitudes than often assumed.