Though this rightward shift in Israeli public opinion has been ongoing for decades, it accelerated sharply in the 21st century. The cause is obvious: the failure of the 1990s peace process, the violence of the Second Intifada — the five-year Palestinian uprising from the year 2000 that left 4,000 people dead — and the rise of Hamas in Gaza. There are additional factors at play here, such as communal tensions that have pushed voters from Israeli's Mizrahi population, Jews who mostly hail from surrounding Muslim countries, toward Likud. But political scientists have found that suicide bombs and rocket attacks have concretely and measurably pushed Israelis rightward in general.
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