To think that this really can't be true about young people's thoughts about Israel?

How old is he? If he’s school aged, wouldn’t the parents make sure he’s somewhat informed about the state of things and not relying of social media algorithms?When Oct 7 happened, I assumed most families would discuss it!

Good for them! I’m surprised so many disagreed, actually.

@YourPinkDog

I think we have to acknowledge that what happened 80 years ago was unfair, it is the only .way to move forward. I don't want to use history to justify any atrocities.

BTW most of those chanting "from the river to the sea" just mean there should be a free Palestine, not that Israel should be destroyed. Although when it was first used by Likud it did mean that they wanted the control of the entirety of Palestine ( as did Ben Gurion who saw the partition as a step to Israeli control of the entire region).

I think we also need to allow the right of return for the decedents of the Nabka refugees and their compensation.

I don't think its possible to move forward without acknowledging the past, so anyone who has been involved in terror attacks must also be tried.

@Aladdinzane I have read the history but take a different approach to many. We can not change the past. Whether what happened 80 years ago was the best approach or not is kind of moot at this point. We have to start from where we are now. We have Israel a country full of mainly people born in that country, it is their country. And we have people living in Gaza and the West Bank who should have a better quality of life. There needs to be a negotiated settlement that meets everyone's needs. But not the desire for Israel to be wiped out or River to the Sea "solutions".

I worked in NI during the "troubles" and heard people talking about history to justify atrocities and murders. It helps no one. We have to start from where we are now, not keep referring back to ancient wrongs. And 80 years ago is a long time ago.

@YourPinkDog Do you think the way the UN mandate partitioned the region was fair?

@Aladdinzane I favour a two state solution, with Israel existing as a country. My comment was in relation to the poll about Israel not existing.

@YourPinkDog

Can we address the same about Palestinian citizens? About the ones that are also refugees in other countries too?

Which facts? 90%, if not all, of your post 79Helene and I were referring to was fabrication.

My question would always be, given the vast majority of Israeli citizens were born there, where do you want them to go?
Nearly always I get a flowery answer about how they can continue living in the new Palestine land. This shows a dangerous naivety.

@RedToothBrush That is one of the most considered approaches I've seen here.

I think that if we are going to debate the issue we need to consider a whole range of facts.

Before we start, Yes, Israel has the right to exist, but this is far more complicated than that.

One of the issues is that the Balfour declaration about managing Jewish immigration into what was then called Palestine was made for political reasons, one of which was to get political support from Jewish communities globally on the side of the allies in World war one. There is a reason that the letter was addressed to Lord Rothschild who was the leader of the Jewish community in the UK in order to communicate it to the Zionist federation. Prior to this there had been a Zionist movement ( that is the historically accurate name for it ) that helped Jews move to Israel ( including with funding) but the Jewish population of the area was extremely small, and the majority had been Muslim since about the 12th century, there hadn't been a Jewish majority since about the 5th century.

2ndly is to acknowledge that, using DNA tests both Palestinians and Israeli Jews ( actually a majority of Jews) are descended from people from the Levante, there is no "invader" who do not have their ethnic background coming from that place. It should also be noted that the Palestinians are probably descended from Jews who remained in the region post 63 AD., they converted first to Christianity and then to Islam later.

3rd is to acknowledge that both Israeli and Palestinian factions used terrorism in the 1920s and 30s in order to force their political points, and that the Arab/Palestinian population were the biggest victims in terms of deaths ( also note, the Israelis made the planner of one of the biggest terror attacks, The King David Hotel bombing, their 6th Prime Minister).

4th is to recognise that the horrors of the holocaust hurried the need for the creation of a Jewish state. It was absolutely necessary to do this.

5th is for the Israeli side to admit to the war crimes committed in 1947/48 with regard to the Nabka and not return to the myth of being attacked. The Israeli militia were by far the best armed forces in the region at that point too. The Israeli militias certainly did pursue a policy of expelling or encouraging Palestinian citizens to flee and that this policy had been discussed extensively by Ben Gurion prior to the state's creation, although he denied it was actively a policy, it was used.

It needs also to be acknowledged that whilst there was a necessity for Israel to be a state, it was never designed by the UN to be an ethno state, and those non Jews who were living in the land designated by the UN mandate to be Israel had been expected to stay. It should also be admitted that the division of land was unfair, giving the smaller and much newer population more of the land and the prime arable crop areas plus established ports like Haifa. Considering what are now known as Palestinians ( but were called Arabs in the 40s) owned two thirds of the land at this point, it is no wonder that the proposal was rejected by them at the time. There should have been a lot more care put into the plan, but the UK in particular wanted to withdraw quickly. The Arab league at the time were also right in stating that the partition of Palestine violated the UN Charter which gives the right to self determination.

Israel has the right to exist, but within the borders established by the UN Mandate, it also does not have the right to make Jerusalem its capital city or occupy other areas.

Terrorist action and attacks on Israeli citizens are abhorrent and should be denounced thoroughly as criminal attacks.

Israel has committed war crimes under various Geneva Conventions since 1948, and continues with these violations of international law to this day, and as much as it is claimed by supporters of Israel that the UN is anti-Semitic, Israel escapes sanctions unlike many other states (Iran for example). Under the same tone, the Palestinian movement has also used illegal terrorism for decades in order to further its cause and this has caused untold misery for the Palestinian population.

Reparations should be paid to the Palestinian Authority with the specific aim of rebuilding Gaza and building infrastructure in the West Bank.

We need to admit that there is No "good" side here and a truth and reconciliation committee like in South Africa might be a very good way to start

None of that explains why young people think Israel doesn't have the right to exist as opposed to needing regime change.

Because they have been groomed into thinking that by antisemites who would see Israel wiped off the map.

Back to the question.

However, the state of Israel was created, rightly or wrongly, it has been in existence for over 70 years now, so it is here to stay.

However, how the government of Israel conducts itself can be questioned.

When the government acts so disproportionately against Palestinian citizens in front of the world's eyes, this cannot be ignored.

The world was shocked at the horrific torture, kidnapping or killing of approximately 1500 innocent people in Israel by Hamas.

But the Israeli government's wantonly disproportionate response of decimating a society of 2 million plus people has been shocking in the extreem. So extreem, is it any wonder that the atrocity in Israel pales in comparison. Is it any wonder that the majority of the world cannot look at the country of Israel in the same way they did a year ago? That they cannot believe a supposed beacon of democracy in the Middle East is caple of such barbarity, bombing innocent women, children and men to pieces, killing whole families, denying survivors the basics of life, access to food, water and shelter.

Seeing aid trucks on the way from Israel to the starving in Gaza, ransacked by some Israeli people, with food trodden into the ground, so their 'enemy' can't have it. All why, the police and Army stand by letting it happen!

And while all this is happening to Gaza, in the West Bank, some Israeli settlers go on the rampage, evicting Palestinians from their farms, kill some of them, again while the Israeli police and the IDF turn a blind eye.

I simply cannot comprehend the biblical levels revenge. It has long been the case that if a member of a family in West Bank engages in actions against the government, the response has been to target the rest of the family by destroying their home, in other words, collective punishment. This has been taken to a whole new level in Gaza.

When will the desire for total revenge stop? When will the killing be enough for the Israeli government? When will governments such as the US, the UK , Germany stop hiding behind collective guilt about about the Holocaust, dreadful as it was, and say to Israel they have gone too far and they must stop? When will they apply the same standards to Israel and apply meaningful sanctions to them. When will they start listening and acting immediately on the warnings of the world's humantarian organisations, the UN the ICC and the ICJ and stop slandering them or threatening them with sanctions for speaking out and doing their job?

Nowhere else, would it be acceptable where if a gunman, held an innocent person in front of them, for a policeman or soldier to shoot through that person to kill the gunman and the innocent person and for them to say it was justified to kill the innocent person to take out the gunman. To do so on such a massive scale is barbarous.

So, the above is why Israel has lost the moral high ground with not only young people, but of a significant number of people of all ages around the world.

And yet, despite the phrasing, it was only the youngest age category that said in the majority that Israel didn't have the right to exist.

Some definitely are.

But I find the question itself problematic because it's essentially introducing bias too.

It should be better phrased.

So Israel should be wiped off the map?

This. Of course it’s appalling the way Hamas behaved in Israel in October, but to punish Palestinian children for it, for months?

I think this is a question which you'll get very different answers from, from the same people, depending on the phrasing of the question and the context in which it's presented.

You'll get people arguing that 'from the river to the sea' isn't talking about 'without Israel' but I think it's time people started realising that that is what people are meaning.

I actually attended some lectures of Ilan Pappe when he was still faculty in Israel before he became persona non grata there. I guess I would be considered a lefty and both I and many I know are horrified by the current government and feel completely desperate.

But, my family fled from Yemen in the 20s before Israel was a state, with just the clothes on their back. I am not being hyperbolic. That isn't a myth. Fortunately they were permitted to settle in the British Mandate, they weren't welcome anywhere else. Their mother tongue was Arabic and they were forced out after millenia of Jeiwsh-Arab life in Yemen. I don't think I would be welcome back there either. Where would everyone go now?

Personally I would welcome a return to the 1967 borders as unlikely as that is now. I abhor the settler movement and the grip they have on Bibi. But I don't think that's what many of the protesters and anti-Israel people want. I think they would sooner the state disappear, and perhaps being charitable magically morph into a place if harmony for all. But that is completely unrealistic. And the 20% Arab population of Israel proper would largely agree.

The Indian region was ruled for over a century, but did the population change?

There's a bit if a difference between 100 and 2000 years. Of course there were waves of immigration and diasporas over that time period.
Not just in that region either, pretty much any country in Europe and Asia had wave after wave of immigration and population change over the last two millennia.

I think this question could be taken in a modern context or an historical one.

Should the British have divided lands in the way that they did to create Israel? Arguably no. You could say that Israel should not exist and it was only created to effectively get rid of Jewish refugees from Europe post WWII because, despite the modern rhetoric at the time neither Europe nor America wanted to deal with such a traumatised population and they were dealing with domestic anti-Semitism. It was a solution that suited the UK for antisemitic reasons.

However ask into the context of Israel being established and there, you can't just take it away either now. It IS a homeland for Israelis.

I think this is a question which you'll get very different answers from, from the same people, depending on the phrasing of the question and the context in which it's presented.

I am appalled by the survey and hope it does not reflect the population at large. Israel has every right to exist and I cannot believe that anyone thinks otherwise - it is blatant antisemitism.

Yes. But you don't seem to have answered the questions that you were quoting which is a bit odd since you bothered to quote them.

Can you answer my questions please?

1. do you believe Israel has the right to exist?
2. if not, do you think this about any other country in the world?

Will you have an opinion when Palestinians mudder Jewish children too? Oh they already did but you remain silent.

Do you believe Palestinains should have a sovereign state?