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.

or this

Nelson Mandela was a terrorist until he wasn't as were Aboriginal people and indigenous native Americans until they weren't which is invariably the point at which colonisation has succeeded. The US is a terrorist state for what it did in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya not to mention the far east.
As for Israel being attacked...wow breathtaking revisionism. You think Israel is a peaceable nation? It created a multi million person refugee issue, it refuses a right of return to maintain its racial/religious dominance, it brutalises millions of people in the occupied territories. But it's best that you stick to official definitions of terrorism then you can always blames the stateless, the occupied, the victims for all the violence. It's an old playbook.

So your saying Hamas - the people who killed over a thousand people and raped and kidnapped more - aren't terrorists?

So your saying Hamas - the people who killed over a thousand people and raped and kidnapped more - aren't terrorists?

Comparing those raping, murdering bastards to Nelson Mandela is deeply offensive, isn't it?

No, it was the United Nations as a COLLECTIVE who decided to partition the region of Palestine in 1947.

The Arabs rejected that deal due to wanting the whole region for themselves.
*
The UN had zero representation from Arab states. Nobody felt they ought to be asked. Nobody felt the Palestinains needed to be asked. This wasn't the UN as we know it. It was a legacy of empire. Also the Arabs wanted Palestine for themselves??? That's cos it was theres!!! I suppose the native Americans and Australians are similarly greedy right? I mean why oppose empire and colonisation. It's entirely nonsensical to want freedom, representation, dignity.*

Is this your version of "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"? A nonsensical cliché pushed by terrorist organisations, their fellow travellers, gullible Westerners?

Oh, and Mandela remained a terrorist. Not just because his terrorist group mostly murdered civilians, not just because he never actually renounced violence from such groups but also because he supported PIRA telling them to keep hold of their weapons until they got what they wanted. Which thru didn't.

"Saint" Nelson isn't a great example for you to use. The man was supportive of dictators such as Fidel Castro and Colonel Gaddafi who also supplied PIRA with weapons.

Ooft, see the international terrorist network links between all these groups? 🤦‍♂️

You're not making much sense and that explains why you're now grasping at anything you can like a drowning person....

Don't be facile. Both Hamas and Nelson Mandela have been given the title terrorist. It's entirely appropriate to ask what makes a terrorist and compare them. Anyway Israel would know about Manedela's terrorism given how closely it was involved in upholding, supporting and bolstering white minority rule in SA.

Does raping and murdering women and children in the name of a cause make you a terrorist?

What??? How on earth have you got to that? Can you actually read?

Nowhere has @noblegiraffe said anything of the sort, nor implied or hinted as such. Your accusation is as baseless as it is abhorrent.

@noblegiraffe has been posting on MN for years and I’ve never once seen her post anything other than thoughtful, measured and respectful points. I suggest you respond in kind and post in good faith, using your brain and not allowing your emotions make a fool of you.

Libya, Cuba, Ireland and South Africa- all wild terrorist nations. Every single one with greater moral clarity than Israel will ever have until it faces up to the fact that it is built on the rubble of the Palestinian villages it burnt and destroyed.

The truth is that Jewish and Palestinian peoples ARE both indigenous to the region of Palestine.

The entire problem is best viewed as two national groups of peoples who cannot agree on what should be done with the ancestral homeland they both belong to.

Most people in this thread are NOT part of a problem where peoples with ancestral links to the same land cannot agree which results in partition.

The Middle East peace process HAS to be framed in that way in the long run.

Once again, most posters blatantly ignore the reality that the Middle East conflict has been Israel v Arab States including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran in addition to Iranian proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen.

There's big gaps in most people's knowledge which shows they also don't really understand the Middle East Region as a whole.

I'm slightly older than this age bracket and I don't believe Israel should exist. I'm educated enough to know the history of how Israel came to be, and also educated enough to know that it will most likely continue to exist, but I don't believe it should, in my heart.
They are an occupying power who have held the Palestinians, particularly the Gazans, in an open air prison / concentration camp for over 75 years and subjected them to unimaginable cruelty, racism and segregation.
The state of Israel is a terrorist, genocidal state. They are abhorrent and so are those who support them and turn a blind eye to what they have been doing to the Palestinian people for decades.
Free Palestine 🇵🇸

Quick reminder here that not only WILL Mumsnet take action over posts expressing or could be interpreted as support for terrorist groups, but the relevant authorities might also be interested in such posts.

It is strictly prohibited.

What should happen to it then?

Thanks, it's all water off a duck's back tbh. I teach teens, I know exactly how difficult it is to get them to connect the dots between pieces of information they have been given, or even getting them to remember pieces of information they have been given. When it's something abstract, like something happening in a far off country and without any sort of context to place it in, it's even more difficult.

And from teaching teens, I know how little some of them know about current affairs!

I did give him a book about antisemitism to read, it's absolutely clear from this thread and others how urgent it is teaching him how to spot it and avoid falling for it.

Don't be facile. Both Hamas and Nelson Mandela have been given the title terrorist. It's entirely appropriate to ask what makes a terrorist and compare them. Anyway Israel would know about Manedela's terrorism given how closely it was involved in upholding, supporting and bolstering white minority rule in SA.

I was comparing them. I don't remember Nelson Mandela raping anyone or dragging their lifeless body through the streets in front of a jeering mob, as a blow for freedom of all South Africans.

Israel didn't create "a multi million person refugee issue". 700 000 Palestinians were displaced for various reasons related to the creation of the state of Israel and then as a result of UN (in)action and other countries refusing to give them citizenship, it has become "a multi million person refugee issue". Imagine if they hadn't been treated like vermin by the rest of the Arab world? Imagine if they'd instead been treated like humans in need of support? Imagine if the UN had actually pushed for their human rights to be respected instead of encouraging everyone including themselves to keep them as refugees?

Not every bad thing Palestinians have been through is because of Israel. Plenty of other countries have well and truly fucked them over too. Maybe look into how Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank were treated prior to 1967 by Egypt and Jordan.

You think there were no Jews living there for thousands of years?? 🤦‍♀️

Do yourself a favour and look up the status of Jews under the Ottoman Empire in the region and what it meant to be a dhimmi.

@TrickyRibbon a two state solution seems like the only way to move toward peace. But the Palestinian people need their own autonomy, democracy, without any interference from the Israeli state whatsoever. The Israeli state, the IDF need to make reparations for the land they have stolen and the unquantifiable and generational damage they have done to these people, and forever leave them in peace.

You claim to be "educated enough" yet claim Palestinians have been held "in an open air prison / concentration camp for over 75 years"!

You've blatantly skipped the historical fact that Gaza was under Egyptian military rule from 1949 to 1956 and again from 1957 to 1967 and West Bank was part of Jordan from 1950 until 1967.

Also skipped who started the Six Day War and others. Hint: it wasn't Israel.

And "Free Palestine" was originally a Jewish slogan they used in the United States.

Reparations shouldn't happen unless the displaced Jews in the region also get reparations. Unless you mean within the actual Palestinian territories as per 1967 borders, in which case there's much more of a case for it.

People often forget that a lot of the land was bought by Jews for them to move to. It was sold to them by the previous landowners who were not the ones who lived there. Paying reparations because you kicked a tenant off land you now own is just not likely to happen. Because why should it? Why should someone have to pay for the land twice?

Israel should leave a future state of Palestine in peace and Palestine should leave Israel in peace by not encouraging suicide bombings, offering pay per slay etc. I'm all for a two state solution and hope it happens in my lifetime.

What an absolutely delusional post that is!🤦‍♂️

For the record, both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland's people very clearly and totally rejected the terrorism of the Provisional Sinn Féin/Provisional IRA/Provisional Army Council!

The Republic of Ireland was also much more repressive of the IRA than the UK ever was of PIRA.

I don't think anything will repair the damage done, but I agree that Israel needs to leave the Palestinian territories alone, make reparations and actively repair the damage they have done to Palestinian infrastructure, however I doubt it'll happen, unless forced by international courts. Hopefully it can happen, and soon.

Not really. Mandela was convicted of terrorist offences, set up a terrorist organisation, was Commander In Chief of that terrorist organisation, supported other terrorist groups such as the Provisional I.R.A, etc.

Terrorists don't have to do exactly the same crimes and atrocities as each other in order to be Terrorists. They certainly try to blackmail/coerce governments & populations to do what they want in addition to various crimes including but not limited to murdering civilians in various ways.

The Arab nations refused to give Palestinians citizenship??? So by that logic if we give Ukrainian's citizenship the entire problem of Ukraine and Russia will vanish! Wow! All fixed. Why should they give citizenship to people who have their own identity.
As for dhimmi status- that's non-Muslim status. Christians, Jews, Hindus and others had it throughout the Muslim world. It was a tax charged to non Muslims as they didn't have to fight in wars if the region was attacked.

You want a two state solution, but dont think Israel should exist. So what are the two states?