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

[Another2Cats]

So, I just read an article where they say they have done a poll of young people and, of those under 25, 54% said that they agree with the statement "the state of Israel should not exist". Just 21% disagreed.

Did the polling company manage to just randomly pick a bunch of people that feel this way, or is this genuinely how many young people feel?

IABU to think that this can't really be true? (I am quite prepared to accept that IABU and that this really is what a majority of young people believe)

The link is here:

https://unherd.com/newsroom/majority-of-young-britons-think-israel-should-not-exist/

and this is the text of the article:

A majority of Britain’s young people do not believe Israel should exist, a new UnHerd poll has revealed.

A preliminary finding of an exclusive survey of 1,012 voters about foreign policy, conducted by Focaldata and due to be released tomorrow on UnHerd, found that a striking 54% of 18-24-year-olds agreed with the statement that “the state of Israel should not exist.” Just 21% disagreed.

This finding dovetails with other UnHerd polling on the same issue. In a separate question, young respondents were asked who was more to blame for the war in Gaza. Half blamed the Israeli government, while a quarter answered Hamas. Only 19% responded “all equally”.

The war’s high degree of exposure online and on social media appears to have fuelled interest among Britain’s young. An AI-generated “all eyes on Rafah” graphic was shared more than 44 million times on Instagram recently, with pro-Palestine content also proliferating on TikTok. Critics have argued that the Chinese social media platform has deliberately promoted anti-Israel content, which TikTok has denied, citing the existing attitudes of its young user base.

These attitudes are reflected in further UnHerd polling, which asked young Britons about their level of interest in wars around the world. It found that Britons aged 18-24 are far more interested in the war in Gaza than they are in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or in US-China tensions. Among this group, 38% were very interested in Gaza and 28% were somewhat interested, compared with 19% and 44% who were very or somewhat interested in the war in Ukraine, respectively.

As the Israeli war enters its eighth month, public opinion has slowly shifted in Palestine’s favour. Historic polling shows that popular support for Israel was at its highest shortly after the 7 October attacks at 21%, but this figure has since fallen. Although young people were most sceptical of Israel before the attack, the overall level of support for the Jewish state over the same time frame has plummeted to 16%, according to YouGov figures.

As of this week, a new ceasefire proposal is on the table, and the US is pushing Israel to accept it. The deal would involve the exchange of prisoners for hostages and would pave the way for negotiations. A ceasefire has strong majority support in the UK.

She has explained this to you repeatedly. As have others.

All Israeli citizens should just disappear.

The majority of Israelis are NOT indigenous because they lived around the globe before the formation of Israel. 2000 years ago when their ancestors lived there does NOT make them indigenous to the land. Palestinians had been living there for 800 YEARS. They are not colonisers because of the Muslim conquest, which in actual fact led them to convert from Judaism to Islam. Your Islamophobic attempt at painting them as so is disingenuous. They were forcefully removed in the Nakba. This is why people call the Right of Return discriminatory; Jews whose ancestors lived there 2000 years ago are free to move to Israel while Palestinians are barred (and cannot live with or marry an Israeli for your information).

Furthermore, I find it interesting how comparing the Israel government to the Nazi government is antisemitic when many people who support Israel also speak of the talking point that Israel is a ‘multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy’. That then proves that comparisons are not antisemitic no?

@crispychickenwings the vast majority of Israeli citizens were born there. So where should they go?

No that's not interesting actually. Nor does it make any sense.

@YourPinkDog

Is it anti-Semitic to question why this particular point is on the list? Not at al.

Is it anti-Semitic to state that there are SOME policies that the state of Israel has engaged in that can be compared? No.

As said, this is an accusations which is being labelled at international institutions, aid agencies and others now.

There have been some awful cases of antisemitism on this thread, conspiracy theories and claims about the genetic make up of Israelis/Jews and it has rightly been called out.

However, I think we need to be more thoughtful about the whole thing though and not just make blanket statements in order to deflect critique,

The millions of displaced Palestinians were born there as well. The Israelis didn't have too much trouble deciding where they should go.

Big difference between thinking it shouldnt exist at all/and thinking it shouldnt exist in its current form - at the exclusion of Palestinian rights to land and statehood and under a governance system which legitimises illegal settlements and land theft and gives more rights to jews of non israeli heritage than it does to people born on that land. I’m 100% aligned with the latter two, and was also when i was 18-24. i wonder how much room for this kind of nuance was allowed in the survey. Definitely usually isn’t in the reporting.

Why did Jews leave the region? And what about those who lived there more recently than 2000 years? How long does someone have to have lived there for you to consider them allowed to stay? And where do you think the Jews who did come from elsewhere in the past 80 years should go?

Calling me an Islamophobe is an incredibly fucked up thing to do. It's pathetic and a completely baseless accusation.

Israelis have no one to blame but themselves. Any country built on the foundation of displacing ,
Murder of millions of people and bombing hospitals and schools doesn’t have a future.

It will eventually self combust

I still find it interesting that so many people seem to have decided history started 800 years ago. It's incredibly odd.

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours Its amazing that you appear to ignore the fact that the current Palestinian population is descendant from the population which has lived in the region for more than that 800 years ( this is just merely the point at which it became a muslim majority, not because of invasions but conversions from Chritianity).

Its strange though, the historic claims used by some supporters of Israel mean that they think people descended from people who lived in the region 2000 years ago have more right to live there than people that never left and should displace them.

No, I happen to think both people have a right to live there. An equal right.

Jews are also descendants of the very same people. I'm not sure why you and so many others keep ignoring that.

It was explained to you by more than one person why this particular point is on the list but you have decided that the definition of antisemitism is wrong because you really want to compare Jews to Nazis.

"an equal right"

An equal right to return for the families of those expelled in the Nabka? A return of the property seized? A return to the borders set out in the 1948 mandate?

I'm not ignoring the fact that Jews and Palestinians are descended from the same people, I've pointed out that some supporters of Israel use the historic claims to make out that the claim of Israel to the land is stronger, it really isn't.

@noblegiraffe

The reasons given were not strong, and I would agree if it was comparing Jews to Nazis specifically, but it isn't, its the actions of the Israeli government, which is different.

I think its an easy way to deflect criticism and comparison which makes supporters of the Israeli governments policies uncomfortable. After all one of the justifications that people give for the creation of the Israeli state by the 1948 mandate is that it was made clear by the actions of the Nazis that they needed their own state.

I'm not aware of anyone on here who has said it is. It's not my fault that you and so many other posters on here have a vivid imagination and use it to come up with whole conversations that haven't taken place.

How about they can start discussing Palestinian right to return the day negotiations have been successful for those who live there now to regain their own right of return and their land and houses secured wherever they came from?

Obviously you'd have to kick millions upon millions of people out of their houses in Europe and the Arab world, and then kick even more millions of people out of their homes to make place for them etc etc but that's obviously not a problem as long as Palestinians are back where they lived 80 years ago.

Or is it only the Palestinians you're worried about?

The reasons given were not strong, and I would agree if it was comparing Jews to Nazis specifically, but it isn't, its the actions of the Israeli government, which is different.

The Jewish state, Israel? We've gone over this.

'The reasons given were not strong so I'm going to override the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on this because I really want to compare (the Jewish State) Israel's government to Nazis.'?

Not the bit where they came up with final solution to the Jewish question though, of course not that bit, but "How about the imprisoning of people without charge?" (quote from your post) because you really really really can't think of any other regime that did anything like that and so the Nazis it is.

No. If they are not Israeli citizens they were born in Gaza

Sorry meant to type not in support of Israel, I am wholly on the side of innocent people and in this case it is the Palestinians.

@YourPinkDog surely you must know that's claptrap.

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours

Because currently these things are not discussed as part of the two state solution and certainly wouldn't be negotiated by the Israeli government. No fevered imagination here, just asking questions regarding your stance.

"How about they can start discussing Palestinian right to return the day negotiations have been successful for those who live there now to regain their own right of return and their land and houses secured wherever they came from?"

Lets start with Israel first, this is the area where the issues are now. Although this is really good whataboutism.

I'd be quite happy for the original UN mandate to be implemented.