Proximity to settlements in the West Bank shifts protest behavior toward higher‐risk actions and increases perceived collective injustice

Engagement in political conflict has been linked to various material and psychological motives, while the role of perceived collective injustice remains empirically contested. We examine this hypothesis for protest behavior in the West Bank. Since 1967, civilian Israeli settlements have been established here, making salient stark local inequalities. Across two primary and four secondary data collections (N = 8360), exploiting geographical coordinates, we show that proximity to settlements increased the relative likelihood of participating in higher‐risk political action (between +41% and +82%) at the cost of moderate protest (−30% to −36%), flanked by corresponding attitudinal shifts. Effects were spatially limited to a 3‐kilometer distance, time‐insensitive, and validated through separate administrative data on protest events during the same ten‐year observation period. Moreover, the shift toward high‐risk protest engagement was not associated with past negative contact—instead, we find support for the perceived collective injustice mechanism, ruling out several socio‐psychological alternatives. Salience of group‐based moral outrage can shape political behavior in settings of violent asymmetrical conflict.