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.

"700 000 Palestinians left what is now Israel. Some were told to, some chose to."

Actually this is another foundation of Israel myth, the vast majority were driven out by the Israeli militia or left in fear of being slaughtered like others had by the militias. You should read up on it.

Most Jews left Muslims countries because of pogroms, some chose to leave to migrate to Israel.

Absolutely ridiculous some keep on making a FALSE EQUIVALENCE between the Troubles aka Operation Banner and the war in Gaza!

Not only that, but it's a false analogy too.

It speaks to a lack of knowledge about both conflicts and how they very significantly differ from the other. Very much so.

If PIRA had the kind of capability Hamas has and if the UK also had enemies surrounding it on another SIX fronts to make SEVEN fronts to defend against attack.....the UK would have carried out much the same kinds of military operations.

Operation Banner aka the Troubles was absolutely NOT a conflict on the level the State of Israel faces today!

So, let's stop trying to insert NI into this. 🤦‍♂️

My deleted posts were in support of those 53% of young people supporting Palestine. That does not make me anti semite. What I support is freedom for all and the persecution of none. I am not saying that all Israelis are bad, of course they are not. But the Israeli government is not making it easy for those Israeli's. Why is it that if anyone speaks up against what Israel are doing they are considered anti semites. But what the Islamophobia that is on the rise, no one speaks about that. Why? Is it because Israel has always been seen as a Western country and so should always be supported no matter what even if they have committed heinous crimes against innocent women and children. How about all the right wing anti Islam garbage that is spouted on a regular basis by our government, that's ok then is it? All I am seeing from this thread is that there are people who are happy top see the slaughter of innocents.

Correct - it's NOT an equivalent conflict.

But that also wasn't a conflict between "Ireland and England" since it was NOT a case of two Sovereign States attacking the other.

It was a campaign of terrorism by Non-State Actors, i.e. PIRA, INLA, OIRA, UVF, UDA, UFF, etc v a Sovereign State, i.e. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. England is NOT a Sovereign Power.

Your posts were deleted by Mumsnet due to antisemitism. Blatantly so!

In the CITME forum, some have had posts deleted for antisemitism AND expressions of support for terrorist groups.

Be wise here and simply don't do it. Legal repercussions can still come your way.

Why do you find it so difficult to accept that your suggested policy would make things infinitely worse for absolutely everyone except for possibly Palestinians, who I don't think particularly want to live under Hamas rule? Why is that so ok to you? I fully understand the immense suffering they have been through, so why the fuck are you suggesting putting millions of others through the same thing?

And @crispychickenwings - one state solution is only wanted by those who want it to be their state to the detriment of everyone else or arrogant arses in the west who think they know better than the people who actually live in the region, who in general don't want a one state solution. Stop trying to force your ways on others.

Not a myth, facts.

Palestinians and Jews both left for the same reasons. Stop trying to pretend that's not the case.

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours I'm not, you repeated the myth that Palestinians were told to leave or chose to leave when almost all left because they were driven out.

It's not a myth, and Palestinians and Jews both left under similar circumstances.

People who talk about the wrong side of history are dangerous and need a metaphorical slap. Then they need to be educated by proper historians who understand that there is no such thing.

Just to add to this - Arab leaders thought they'd win the war so told Palestinians to leave so they could go in, kill the enemy and then everyone could return. They were doubly keen on Palestinians leaving so that there would also be fewer people working the land, helping the economy grow etc. They wanted to hit them from multiple directions.

Who exactly is happy to see thr slaughter of innocents?

The thread is not about young people supporting Palestine, it'd about young people thinking Israel shouldn't exist. I've seen hundreds of posts supporting Palestine that didn't get deleted.

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours So you agree the vast majority of Palestinians who left in the Nabka were drive out by Jewish militias in contravention of the partition plan? That this was a war crime.

Thank you.

So who should be the ones going round knocking on doors in Tel Aviv, telling the people who live there they have to leave and their house now belongs to the descendants of the Palestinian family who lived on this spot 80 years ago?

Self-combust? What does that mean?

Not sure about vast majority, but I definitely think a significant number were either driven out or chose to leave to save themselves, yes. As I said, the exact same reasons Jews left the Arab world. Life was no longer tenable for many, so they didn't have much choice but to leave, while others like my uncle had to literally flee on the back of a camel because he was on a list of people to be hanged for the crime of being Jewish.

I don't understand why you won't just accept the similarities in circumstances, why you're so determined to minimise everything to do with Jewish suffering. Minimising Jewish suffering isn't going to make life better for Palestinians.

Just to add, lived in the spot but also didn't actually always own the land. Who should they pay rent to going forward?

Well I for one am not and there are millions like me, anyone with a heart would not want to see any slaughter of innocents on both sides. I for one do not support the thinking that Israel should not exist. It is there now nothing we can do about it but what we need to see is a safe space for both Israelis and Palestinians.
As for the younger generation wanting to see a destruction of Israel, its because they are seeing a destruction of Gaza, created by Hamas and the Israelis and the Palestinians are caught up in the middle. This is what they are seeing on social media. Its up to Israeli government now to change the narrative but they won't, not as long as they are being funded by the U.S.

It is the height of supremacism to deny 5-6 million people who call themselves Palestinians and who know the names and locations of the villages their grandparents and great grandparents were expelled from their story. Moreover you're deliberately ignoring Illan Pappe's seminal work The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine which uses Israeli archived documents to describe how the Zionist movement plotted the mass expulsion from 1920s onwards and then executed it.

@mommyisbest my grandparents and great grandparents were also expelled from villages. So what? It happened a long time ago and was not during and after the second world war. Those people were not born there and most will never have even visited.

Aren’t you the one who’s son didn’t know Oct 7th happened? Not being rude but you might be better off trying to educate him rather than wasting time arguing with trolls on the internet.

@CanadaNotAMum you are misrepresenting me, I have at each stage made it clear that pogroms were the major cause of Jewish migration from other Middle Eastern States.

It was you that repeated the "told to leave or chose to leave" thing which is used by Israeli supporters to dismiss the right to return.

I really don't know how this situation can be resolved without the descendants of those forced out during the Nabka being given the right to return as well as some form of compensation for the land seized.

This is why a truth and reconciliation committee would be very useful,

You're not, great. Who is? You said people are on this thread so who?

If someone wants the destruction of a while country thats disgusting, I don't care what they've seen on social media. If someone who said that they saw images of October 7th and now want all of Gaza to be destroyed I doubt you'd be defending them.

I think the Israelis have lost a huge amount of international goodwill with how they have approached this. Huge. Its been a humanitarian disaster.

Sorry are you saying that a deliberate plan to ethnically cleanse land via massacres and expulsions and repopulate it with people of the Jewish faith and then maintain their majority status through racist policies should be normalised because your ancestors were also ethnically cleansed and somehow the timing wasn't related to the Second World War???