Proximity to settlements in the West Bank shifts protest behaviour towards higher-risk engagement and raises perceived relative deprivation

Participation in intergroup conflict has been linked to various predisposing factors, but the role of perceptions, such as of group-oriented relative deprivation (RD), remains empirically contested. Here we examine this hypothesis for protest behaviour in the West Bank. Since the Six-Day War of 1967, civilian Israeli settlements have been established here, making salient stark local inequalities. Across two primary and four secondary data collections (N=8,360), exploiting geographical coordinates, we show that proximity to settlements increased the relative likelihood of participating in higher-risk and violent action (between +41% and +82%) at the cost of lower-risk and moderate protest (-30% to -36%), flanked by similar attitudinal shifts. Effects were spatially limited to a 3-kilometer distance and time-insensitive. Self-reports were also reflected in administrative data on actual protest events during the same period. Moreover, the shift is not explained through past negative contact – instead, we find support for RD as the underlying mechanism, ruling out several alternatives. Our study provides evidence that group proximity can influence engagement behaviour in settings of asymmetrical conflict.