Studies on the role of military service as a risk factor for violent extremism (VE) have focused almost exclusively on right-wing extremism (RWE) in the US context. However, it is possible that there is a more generalizable issue. Since 2020, there have been 78 documented cases of Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) engaging in terrorist attacks against Israel. By combining data from official sources, we estimate the risk of VE offending as a function of PASF service, and find it to be a significant risk factor for offending. We discuss both local and general implications of the findings.
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Wolfowicz et al. (2026) studied this question.
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