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.

I suspect that the way a lot of young people would interpret the poll question is something like, should the state of Israel have been founded in the first place.

I would not be surprised if a lot thought it shouldn't have been done. I imagine there are a few different reasons that would be given by various people, some more ideological, some more pragmatic.

Whether they would go from there to say the current state of Israel should no longer exist is a different question I think. I would expect the more utopian ones on the left might say yes, because that group tends to assume that utopian solutions are viable. Partly because they are young and don't tend to see that often, there is no good solution to a problem.

Another point to flag to teens is to be very cautious with the information they are seeing. When absorbing things they see on social media that make them feel a strong emotion, they should stop and verify (via independent well-researched sources, not the echo chamber of their feed) and ask "who benefits from this?".

A number of distressing images that have been circulated as being Gaza are actually from conflicts in Syria or Yemen or AI-generated. And translations of audio don't need too much tweaking to suggest something other than what was actually said (even by accident).

Disinformation and propaganda are actively widely used in this sort of conflict - including by third party bad actors.... The more horrendous the image, the more support and money donated, the more hatred generated for the other side.

Learning to think critically, to ask why, to understand that two things can be true at the same time and without emotion are key skills. Then, once you've established the facts, advocate for what you think is right with passion, but even better, actually do something to help people - don't just shout about it.

Oh, are you one of those people who doesn't realise Jordan was also Palestinian land? So Palestinians in the region had already been given a 'new identity' but no one seems to have minded that.

Why didn't Egypt and Jordan try to declare the land they had occupied as Palestine?

As I said, Palestinians have been fucked over by absolutely everyone in the region and the UN. They all just blame it on Israel though because that way they can keep being their fucking useless selves.

Also @mommyisbest you might want to do quite a lot more research into what dhimmi status entails 😳 You don't seem to really know what it is.

Wow! The anti-semites really have come out to play today.

As usual, I'm not surprised by the posts on this thread.

Fuck I feel sorry for any Jews today.

Yep. I mean, you have young people who think one side has weapons and the other is....praying.

Plenty of young people either don't know, ignore or are in denial that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields since Hamas say it is THEY who require Palestinian blood.

👇

Who exactly can keep being their 'fucking useless selves'?

The UN

Sorry, just realised that's not how it reads! It's what I meant though.

@TrickyRibbon I never said that I wanted a two state solution. I said it appears to be the only way forward.

You quite literally said: “Further, why did Hamas attack so brutally in the first place knowing exactly what Israel would do to their families and their communities in
response?”
That is part and parcel victim blaming. Israel has no right to completely decimate Palestinians’ lives because of Hamas’ attacks
Since you’re so concerned about the sexual violence Hamas has inflicted, I imagine you will be as concerned about this:
https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/02/16/reports-of-sexual-assault-harrassment-in-the-idf-up-by-24/
this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/israel-safe-haven-paedophiles-jerusalem-sex-abuse-jewish-community-watch-a7445246.html
this:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against
and this: https://www.omct.org/en/resources/urgent-interventions/israel-inhuman-and-degrading-treatment-including-sexual-harassment-of-palestinian-women-and-girls-detained-in-neve-tertze-womens-prison-ramle

But I’m sure you won’t be, and using your reasoning, I’m sure the victims involved brought all of these cases upon themselves too.

So what do you want to happen?

@DownNative I assume you would’ve been in support of apartheid South Africa then. What South Africa has proven is that disenfranchised people will rise up when faced with injustice, through violence or other means. It would’ve been nonsense for Mandela to reproach violent organisations, because he’d understand why.

What that person was saying was that the definition of terrorist is entirely subjective, and the West uses it whenever they see fit + whenever it benefits them, when in reality, a lot of their own actions will match their definition of ‘terrorist’ too. E.g in destabilising countries and the establishment of imperial regimes.

@Bunnyasmyname how eloquent

"Disinformation and propaganda are actively widely used in this sort of conflict - including by third party bad actors.... The more horrendous the image, the more support and money donated, the more hatred generated for the other side."

I'm assuming you are also going to discuss the massive amounts of disinformation spread by the IDF and the Israeli government themselves here?

@crispychickenwings

They always decry Hamas but defend Israel or steadfastly ignore little facts ( like the fact that they wanted this to have started Oct 7th).

ITs funny that decades of human rights abuses, international law breaches and the massive oppression of a particular ethnic grouping garners such defences.

@Aladdinzane exactly- I believe unconscious racism and Islamophobia is a large part of this. The West already paints Arab Muslims as ‘the bad guys’, I’m sure this view heavily affects the perspective of the Israel/Palestine conflict too.

You might want to leave your Zionist propoganda texts. It is imperative for the existence of Israel that antisemitism is a universal global scourge. In reality on planet earth and in actual history Jews expelled from France and Spain in 12/13 centuries sough refuge in Moorish Spain. When in 1492 Isabelle and Ferdinand expelled the Moors from Spain and began the Inquisition (in contravention of the surrender terms in which the Moor Boabdil had explicitly said Jews should not be harassed or abused) the Jewish population sought refuge in Ottoman Palestine. This is where they lived for the next 458 years in peace as a minority amongst Muslims. Whilst Europe was expelling and pogromming for more than a 1000 years, the Muslim world preserved the Jewish population. Even after the creation of Israel Jewish people didn't leave Muslim countries for years. You need to read the brilliant Jewish academic historian Avi Shlaim.

@crispychickenwings that's part of it, but the narrative regarding the whole issue hasbeen heavily in Israel's favour for decades.

You can see it here: " The Palestinians rejected the two state solution in 1948", they weren't asked, other Arab nations did vote against it though, there was no right to self determination.

The whole narrative on the Nabka being that the Palestinians left of their own accord at the behest of the Arab nations, and that there were no war crimes.

Israel has been a master of propaganda for years, but this is never pointed out.

What Zionist propaganda texts?! Stop making such utterly ridiculous accusations.

Are you trying to claim that Jews have always been considered equal citizens in the Muslim world?

"Oh, are you one of those people who doesn't realise Jordan was also Palestinian land?"

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours

Shows up your ignorance here. Transjordan was always considered a different area.

What were the people who lived West of the river Jordan supposed to do, just move to Jordan? That was never the plan and they are in fact different populations.

But yeah, its everyone else that has fucked the Palenstinians over, it isn't one particular country in the majority, oh no, no.

So you're trying to say that the people in Jordan have absolutely no links to Palestinians? Completely separate people, completely different ethnicity etc? And you think Jordan and Transjordan are completely different things?

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours

No I'm saying that Jordan is east of the river, and traditionally the populations in the North had more connections with Syria and in the South with the Arab peninsular than Palestine its self.

I do not think Jordan and Transjordan are compeltely different things.

You claimed "Jordan was Palestinian Land", it wasn't part of the British Mandate of Palestine ( in fact there was a mandate called Transjordan that was separate and the differences in the area and the populations were recognised by the British at the time).

Answer my question, where should the Palestinians who lived East of the River Jordan have gone to?

Even after the creation of Israel Jewish people didn't leave Muslim countries for years. You need to read the brilliant Jewish academic historian Avi Shlaim.

You need to read what happened to Iraqi Jews.

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours

I do love how you keep trying to diminish Israel's responsibility though.