February marks the 10th anniversary of the Second Intifada’s conclusion. Since then, Israel has held three elections for its parliament, the Knesset, and been involved in at least four major military offenses — facts that some suggest are related. With today’s escalation along Lebanon’s southern border and Israeli elections due in March, we decided to see if the two might be related. Of course, with so few data points, we can’t meaningfully measure correlation, but we can look at sequencing. Indeed, Israel conducted major operations 1–3 months before two of its three post-Intifada elections, but it also launched offensives that don’t quite fit the bill: both the July 2006 war with Lebanon and last year’s devastating war on Gaza didn’t directly precede parliamentary elections.
So the result? It likely depends on your point of view. Decide for yourself using our interactive timeline:
