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.

There was no Israel between old testament times and 1947.
Palestine was the name of the region but it was never independent, it was ruled by various empires including the Romans, Egyptians, ottomans

Couldn't give a damn. A "survey" conducted on such a small sample, and with a question phrased with no nuance, tells us nothing.

@PrincessTeaSet

There was no independent Jewish state in the area since before the common period, there were tribal Kingdoms, briefly, but they were ruled by Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians and Romans.

In fact there was no "state" the archaeological evidence is of tribal kingdoms.

The Palestinians are descended from the people that occupied the area, as are the Jewish Israelis.

@DownNative

I've had one post deleted, and we actually had a fairly reasonable debate on why that particular part of the IHRA is problematic for some, even those of us who are not anti-Semitic.

The question I have is why is it specific to the Israeli government, when all the other parts of the definition are specifically dealing with racism, prejudice and historical tropes which are used to attack Jews. There is even one, which rightly states that its anti-Semitic to hold Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, which makes that other one difficult to justify.

I’ll second this repulsion at the apparent acceptance of the young Israeli women raped and then murdered.

But also add that it’s no surprise that young (and not so young) people have now come to believe that Israel and only Israel is to blame for the conflict.

There’s no history, no explanation of why Jewish people in Israel feel, are and have been threatened, no reporting of Hamas’s commitment to killing Jewish people, or its continuing offences, and Oct 7th is all but forgotten. All has been wiped away by Netanyahu and IDFs transgressions. And, if my understanding only came from the news, well then I’d very likely hold that view too.

Sadly and tragically too many in the Israeli govt and too many Israeli ultranationalists don’t want peace and Hamas does not want peace and what happens as always is that it is women and children who suffer with their lives.

@noblegiraffe

I agree, we should not accept anyone being raped and murdered.

However, there appears to be no acknowledgment anywhere that sexual violence has been used against Palestinian women held in captivity illegally either, for years.

When you say Oct 7th has been forgotten, I disagree, the whole conflict is still being justified by October 7th and many still do so.

October 7th was not the start, Israel has been an international law breaking, human rights abusing, illegally occupying, oppressor of people of a certain ethnic grouping for decades which since the 40s has taken part in ethnic cleansing. This also appears to be forgotten.

There is no right side, however, people here that defend Israel continually paint Israel as the party that was the victim of aggression out of nowhere.

Not sure why you've addressed that post to me because it seems to be totally irrelevant to anything I've said.

That sounds like an echo chamber.

Which is especially misleading for people that aren’t particularly “political” or well-informed…

@Aladdinzane you have tagged me in error as I have not said any of these things. I’ve asked you already to correct it, hoping you do so as I’m the one who has been misrepresented.

Where are the defenders of Israel when this sort of spurious, racist nonsense is posted? Oh that's right, they let it slide.

Wonder why?

One would imagine they are sitting with their heads in their hands sickened by the anti-semitic postings and justifications of Hamas's action wondering "WTF, is happening to the world?" yet again.

A bit like my neighbour said he did in the 1930s. Because yes, apparently that's how you make modern day Jews feel.
And reading the thoughts of people on this thread, I can completely understand why.

You should be disgraced by yourselves.

@DownNative I think I can talk about it because what is happening to Palestinians is horrific and we should all speak out. I’ve researched on the history of the region, and in actual fact the PLO was the leading party in negotiations but it got destabilised and Hamas was propped up by Israel. Before this gets deleted for blasphemy, here are some links from reputable news sources:
https://archive.ph/phckk
https://archive.ph/14c3N
https://archive.ph/UPmEj
A quote from one of the articles: “Most incriminatingly, Netanyahu himself said in 2019 at a Likud party conference: “Anyone who wants to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas.”

Yes, Hamas was elected but they also won by a plurality vote, not a majority, so it’s not like they had huge support from Palestinians
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006Palestinianlegislative_election

And in actual fact, they didn’t allow another election again, likely as they knew they’d lose. Plus, as it was taken in 2006, since half of Gaza is children, they didn’t even vote! So I don’t quite like it when people say ‘Hamas was elected by Palestinians’.

I didn’t know much about Ireland apart from the little I’ve heard and what my Irish friends have told me.
I want to clarify that I absolutely believe Hamas are terrorists, but I retain the belief that using the West’s version of terrorism implicates them as well.

@Greenotgrey Yes, I didn’t bring it up first, but I did speak on what I’m not knowledgeable about and for that I apologised

https://archive.ph/lcKOK
Another source stating the percentage of votes that were won

44.45% is not exactly an insignificant amount of votes. It is huge support. I think the Palestinians at the time were naive to Hamas true intent and thought "anything is better than Fatah" rather than actually wanting to be represented by terrorists who had been sending out men, women and children as suicide bombers only a few years earlier. Specially when Hamas then shortly after started murdering and torturing Palestinians who disagreed with them.

It's interesting that you blame Netanyahu more for Hamas being voted in than you do Palestinians. And when I say interesting, I really mean "quite telling".

Anyway, arguing Hamas didn't win a majority and therefore didn't represent all Palestinians when going on about hating all of Israel for electing Netanyahu when 23% voted for him... Surely even you can see the absolute hypocrisy and insanity in that.

Hmm, nobody really takes you seriously after your last few posts now.

As for the 2006 elections, that's a moot point now polls consistently establish the sad reality that Palestinians in Gaza AND West Bank overwhelmingly support Hamas.

And what they did on 7th October 2023. Indeed, they don't think Hamas did anything wrong even though two-thirds of them didn't agree with Hamas breaking the ceasefire pre-7/10/2023.

It speaks volumes.

And still you argue that terrorism is just an opinion which I easily dealt with previously. Other opinions are available and just as valid, in fact more valid!

It's clear terrorism is not a subject you are familiar with in detail. 🤷‍♂️

Not that any of this is particularly relevant, but it was called Israel before it was ever called Palestine. Please don't only use history if it benefits your narrative. History doesn't start whenever Palestine was first mentioned.

Jews and Palestinians all have legitimate links to the land. Stop trying to deny it, it's not ok. The whole Jewish religion is based in the region. We pray towards Jerusalem. It's our holiest site. It's ridiculous how many people are still adamant that Jews don't belong there.

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours I’m not Jewish but I’m completely staggered by the poor grasp of history of the region which many pro - Palestinian supporters have. I can’t imagine actively supporting a cause, particularly a contentious one, until I really understand it.

what a moronic thing to say. Clearly you know nothing of the 5000 years plus of Jewish history then 🤣🤡💛

Release the hostages. what’s left of them anyway. you know, those children included?? please feel free to go over to Gaza and help out if you feel so strongly?

The impressionables of the world will make helpful puppets for the terrorists’ future and survival. Good luck with how the world sits in 50 years time with attitudes like this. 💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛

@MyrrAgain interesting you talk of children.
Yes they definitely should release them. And Israel should also stop killing THOUSANDS of children.

What a disgrace that they, alongside Hamas have been added to a list of countries and organisations that actively harm children in war zones.

Yeah it would help though wouldn’t it if they don’t hide their terrorists underneath civilian homes, amongst schools, use the children as human shields, indoctrinate all of the people and children into haters and terrorists etc etc?? I mean they found dead hostages inside UN school buildings? Oh and if you stop listening to the nonsense numbers that Hamas ministry of misinformation pump out. puppets.

yeah, you keep saying all that to yourself then love. 💛💛💛

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours You’re obfuscating again. Yes, Hamas won by 44.45% but Fatah won by 41.43%, so that shows ‘huge support’ for both parties. How on Earth would Hamas have been as popular if Netanyahu hadn’t bolstered them? Stop being obtuse. Once again, the Israeli vote was a plurality vote. Since it was done in 2022, not 18 years ago, I don’t blame many people for believing Israel is still far-right.
I don’t think they were naïve…if peace talks were going nowhere due to the Israeli government, then some Palestinians would likely resort to other means.

As Aladdinzane said, Israel was made out of tribal kingdoms which were ruled by higher authorities. There is no evidence there was ever a state in that region. I don’t believe people should have ownership of a land due to religion. Religious connections are very tenuous, as there is very very little evidence for any of them.

So you think Palestinians purposely voted in genocidal terrorists because they wanted them to eradicate Israel by terrorism?

States/countries etc weren't a thing back then.

So because you don't think people should have ownership of a land due to religion that means it shouldn't be like that? Right.

The idea that there's "very very little evidence" for Israel historically being Jewish is a joke, right? Like, you've heard of the temples? I know there's a massive mosque on top of them, but I hope we can all agree the Jewish temples were there first.

Stop denying facts just because you want to be rid of Israel. It's not ok.

@DownNative Hmm nobody can take me seriously but I added sources so read them if you can be bothered.
I struggle to see how you can’t understand why a population that has been violently subjugated for 76 years would turn to a violent party to achieve their goals when the peaceful parties were being destabilised and ignored. While I disagree with what Hamas did, you can’t be confused as to why some Palestinians would support it?
Israel broke the ceasefire too, as well as continued their human rights abuses of Palestinians but I suppose you don’t care about that. Quite telling how you say I should ‘leave it to the experts’ when you yourself are making judgements too.
Of course other opinions are valid, what I’m saying is that just because Western institutions do not declare their own countries and allies as terrorists does not mean their actions cannot be classed as terrorism. How did you ‘easily deal’ with it? You didn’t even respond to that section of my post, and had nothing to say on the US’ Act to invade The Hague if they try to take them to court. It’s ok to criticise the West, I promise!

@MyMumIsBetterThanYours Continue ignoring my sources that prove Israel was destabilising peaceful parties and outright dismissing them.

There is no proof of anything from Judaism, Islam Christianity or any other religion, apart from dubious holy books. Yes they existed, but is there proof of what they claim? No.
The Canaanites moved to the Levant, they didn’t originate there, so if we want to be very historically accurate we would say since idols have been found in the region, polytheistic religions have claim to Israel/Palestine and no one else. Or if that form of polytheism no longer exists, a group of people can just convert to it and move there! Similar to the Right of Return!

And if we want to follow religious texts (that have no basis in reality), it in fact says the Israelites moved there from Egypt and brutally slaughtered tribes that were living there first. So I suppose descendants of those tribes get a piece of Israel/Palestine since a holy book establishes so.