Vol:.(1234567890) Community Mental Health Journal (2020) 56:1480–1488 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00592-w 1 3 ORIGINAL PAPER Predictors of National and Community Resilience of Israeli Border Inhabitants Threatened by War and Terror Yohanan Eshel 1,2  · Shaul Kimhi 3  · Hadas Marciano 3,4 Received: 15 July 2019 / Accepted: 19 February 2020 / Published online: 25 February 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract The present study investigates predictors of the national resilience (NR) and community resilience (CR) of civilians who live on Israel’s northern border, and are facing for years acts of terror and threats of war. A sample of 1515 kibbutz (com- munal settlement) members who live next to this northern Israeli border has responded to questionnaires pertaining to the investigated resiliencies. Results indicate that under these conditions psychological reactions (trust in community institutes and individual resilience), rather than demographic characteristics, are the best predictors of NR and CR; although NR is further predicted by right-wing political attitudes. Our data suggest that CR and NR are not predicted by objective exami- nations of the strength of one’s community or country. Both of them are perceived as stronger the greater the trust of the respondents in their own ability to cope with adversities, and in the ability of their close community to take care of them and their families in face of terror. Keywords National resilience · Individual attributes predicting national resilience · Community resilience · Exposure to terror Resilience following threats of war, terror, climate change, natural disasters and other adversities that happen in life has been studied extensively in the last decade (Bonanno et al. 2015). Research shows that following a large number of misfortunes such as physical injury, loss of employment or death of a relative, the common response is recuperation. The most prevalent reaction of those afected by such acute potentially traumatic events is resilience rather than PTSD symptoms (Bonanno et al. 2006). Many additional sources of stress result from chronic rather than acute adversities, such as political violence, chronic poverty or discrimina- tion, and there is a scarcity of empirical data concerning communal resilience in face of such hardships. Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have fought in numerous minor armed conficts over their mutual border including guerilla and counter-guerilla campaigns, and three large scale military clashes, in 1993, 1996, and 2006. The Israeli-Hezbollah tension has increased again in the fall of 2017. At the end of the year 2018 and the begin- ning of 2019 the Israeli Defense forces have uncovered and destroyed a number of very long attack underground tunnels, that have been excavated by the Hezbollah in order to invade Israel and conquer civilian Israeli settlements by surprise (Issacharof 2018). The present study investigates national resilience (NR) under these continuous threats of war and terror attacks encountered by members of kibbutzim (com- munal settlements) living on the northern border of Israel, in close vicinity to Hezbollah bases. Drory et al. (2017) argue that from its inception the kibbutz embraces the Zionist ide- ology of adherence to settling Israel’s borders and to taking responsibility for its security, and the ideology of commit- ment to the community and to the burden of national and societal missions such as guarding Israel’s borders. These obligations continue to exist despite the growing confict * Yohanan Eshel yeshel@psy.haifa.ac.il Shaul Kimhi shaulkim@telhai.ac.il Hadas Marciano hmarcia1@univ.haifa.ac.il 1 Tel-hai College, Qiryat Shemona, Israel 2 Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel 3 Department of Psychology, Tel-hai College, Qiryat Shemona, Israel 4 Ergonomics and Human Factors Unit, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel