What drives support for war and opposition to negotiations? The hope for victory or the lack of hope for peace?

What drives public support for military action and opposition for compromise among societies mired in prolonged conflict? Is it the hope to win or the lack of hope for peace? Public opinion polls conducted during protracted conflict have consistently shown that most citizens oppose compromise and support military measures against their rivals. One reason people support military action and oppose compromise lies in their belief that victory over their adversary is possible. The greater the belief in the likelihood of victory, the greater the support for military measures and the greater the opposition to compromises in future negotiations. However, it could also be postulated that the main driver of the same phenomenon is rooted in the lack of hope for peace. The lower the belief in the likelihood of peace, the higher the support for military action and reluctance to support compromises. Of course, the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. Citizens entrapped in conflict can simultaneously have high hopes for victory and low hopes for peace. The question is which hope is more dominant when citizens formulate their stance about armed action and concession-making. We tested the relative predicting power of hope for victory and lack of hope for peace in a study conducted among 500 Israelis and 500 West Bank Palestinians. Results first show that in the context of a protracted intractable conflict, citizens' have high hopes for victory and low hope for peace. Notably, the lack of hope for peace was a stronger predictor of Israelis' and Palestinians' support for armed action and opposition for concession making than their hope for victory. It seems that during protracted conflict, public support for violence and opposition to compromise are not driven mainly by the people's belief in victory but from their belief in the impossibility of peace. Implications for theoretical and applied research on protracted conflicts and discussed.