Exposure to Violence, Psychological Distress, and Violent Extremism During Conflict Escalation: Evidence from the June 2025 Iran–Israel War

When does acute war exposure translate into ingroup-directed violent extremism toward political leaders? Research on political violence shows that conflict exposure can harden political attitudes, yet we know less about when it fuels elite-directed violent extremism and personal readiness to act, particularly under sudden, geographically diffuse, and hard-to-control forms of violence. We address this gap by distinguishing between two outcomes directed at politicians and public officials: principled support for political violence and personal willingness to use violence. We fielded a nationwide online survey of 500 Jewish Israeli adults in the days following the June 2025 Iran–Israel missile escalation, a short, high-intensity episode characterized by long-range attacks that limit individual agency and amplify uncertainty and perceived loss of control. We test whether exposure to missile attacks is associated with political violence attitudes and intentions via war-related psychological distress, and whether these associations vary by ideology. Results indicate that greater exposure is linked to higher distress, which in turn is associated with stronger support for political violence and higher violent intentions. Ideology conditions only the intentions pathway: distress predicts violent intentions among right-leaning respondents but not among left-leaning respondents, while the association between distress and support for political violence is similar across ideological positions. These findings suggest that acute, low-control exposure to long-range violence translates distress into intended action against domestic political elites, with ideology shaping this translation from distress to intentions rather than from exposure to distress.