From Conspiracy Beliefs to Radical Action: Antisemitic Narratives, Anti-Israel Attitudes, and Pathways to Political Radicalization
Abstract
The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza were followed by the rapid spread of conspiracy narratives. The present exploratory research examines how belief in newly emerging conspiracy theories is associated with support for radical political action, and whether these associations operate through antisemitic attitudes toward Jews or political hostility toward Israel. Across two U.S. studies conducted in 2024 (N = 1,240) and 2025 (N = 567), participants evaluated three then-widely-circulating conspiracies: claims that Israel deliberately bombed Al-Ahli hospital; that evidence of Hamas atrocities was staged; and that the war was engineered to advance a “Great Replacement.” Results revealed that endorsement of conspiracy narratives was consistently associated with stronger support for illegal or violent political action. However, these relationships were driven primarily by negative attitudes toward Israel rather than by generalized antisemitic attitudes toward Jews. These findings refine theories of antisemitism and radicalization by identifying a target-specific pathway in which conspiratorial narratives mobilize grievance-based radicalization without necessarily increasing anti-Jewish animus. The results underscore the importance of analytically distinguishing antisemitism from anti-Israel sentiment and highlight conspiracy beliefs as a key psychological mechanism linking political conflict to support for radical action.
Acknowledgement
The research was supported by the Minerva Research Initiative, Department of Defense Grant No N000 14-21-275485. Any opinions, findings, or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors alone and do not reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense.
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