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 think this has sadly and ridiculously become the edgy and fashionable thing to say amongst the impressionable young.
Social media with "influencers" and "celebrities" driving this as it has for other issues. Critical thinking bypassed.
I think it has also become linked in some people's views to being anti racist. Anti semitism on the other hand has always been minimised as a sort of "acceptable" racism which some don't seem to count much like Diane Abbot.
I fully believe other countries are exploiting this too.
I have a new young friend who is in her final year at university and her complete ignorance of history, politics and current events takes my breath away.

"Does make you wonder though why Israel is such a focus for so many...."

The fact that its been an international law breaking, war crime committing state since its inception maybe?

Just maybe...

The Houthi slogan includes 'Death to Israel and a curse upon Jews'.

What do you think their reason is?

There is a big difference between people bing exposed to what they see in the media, and people actually being informed.

Not too worried about the Saudi/Yemen situation though? How about the Uyghurs in China?

Pakistan was created around the same time as Israel by the British as a specific homeland for Muslims, causing mass displacement of people and death.

Does Pakistan have a right to exist?

You seem so knowledgeable and I'm curious, how did Jews build two temples while a massive mosque was sat right on top?? Were they just really clever engineers?

Unless you think maybe Jews are actually indigenous to the area and therefore built it first?

No, it’s really not a puzzle. You can try and insinuate that it’s some kind of deep rooted anti semitism but it really isn’t. It’s just people making an objective judgment of a situation based on what has happened to humans regardless of what religion they are.

Since it was created, Isreal has done plenty to deserve the bad feeling against it and it is disingenuous to pretend it’s all because of racism against Jews.

Yes we fucked that up too

We did, but I don't see people marching on the streets of London calling for it to be wiped off the map.

I'm not surprised at all.

I think it's awful, to be 100% clear, but it doesn't surprise me.

Antisemitism is surging amongst the young and very online.

It's the 'acceptable' viewpoint and many will swallow it whole without question.

Pakistan isn’t brutally occupying India.

@Comedycook

Whataboutism fail.

Why are you trying to deflect? Plenty of people have protested and campaigned against these things

But if we want direct comparison, the conflict in Yemen has killed about 150k people directly in 10 years, the rate of death in Palestine is far higher.

But yes, just imply that anyone protesting against the actions of the Israeli government is an antisemite and you can ignore them right? Whilst continuing to ignore the ICJ, World court, Doctors without borders and loads of other aid agencies, right?

Yeah, there is also the fact that UnHerd I'm sure has an agenda and I wouldn't necessarily trust how it frames its questions.

It's all in the framing - like I once saw a headline saying 'X % of people don't think 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust' as though people were denying it, but actually it was a multiple choice question about how many Jews people thought died in the Holocaust, not 'do you believe 6m Jews died in the Holocaust?' as the headline seemed to imply. So it was very misleading.

After the heinous slaughtering and murder of the Palestinian people then I'm not surprised for the hostility. We are trying to raise funds for 2 orphan children from separate families, both heavily injured in bomb blasts that killed their parents and siblings. I have never witnessed anything like this in my life and I hope I never have to again. War crime after war crime has been committed and I can understand why young people are having these views. They are the generation who can see it all online and don't rely on our biased news channels for the information, it's all there to see. I'm proud of our young people for standing up for a nation who have been treated appalling by the Israeli occupation, Israel have brought this hatred on themselves. Nearly 16,000 innocent children dead, what did they expect?

How about northern Cyprus? Many greek Cypriots were forced out of their homes? The country remains divided. How do you feel about that?

This. My daughter is 22 and my twins 19 and they feel strongly with this.

The people who dismiss arguments for the dismantling of the Israeli state are not dealing with 3 critical facets of the Israeli state:

1. It was set up to be a majority Jewish nation with a right of return for Jews globally
2. It achieved this by expelling 750,000 indigenous people Muslims and Christians who have lived there for 800 years
3. It operates a blatantly racist system in territories that it illegally occupies in order to expand illegal settlements and literally move more indigenous people off their land.

Illan Pappe, Naomi Klein, Avi Shlaim are some of the fantastic Jewish writers who use the Jewish religious command of challenging injustice to expose the iniquities of Israel. Nobody should comment on the wisdom or otherwise of challenging the state of Israel until they've read them.

When Turkey occupy and and shoot dead Greek children on the streets throwing stones constantly backed up by the west I shall have a similar opinion

I don’t know enough about it, presumably because it’s not a part of the world I’m personally connected to, and public attention hasn’t been drawn to the situation because no innocent Greek Cypriot children have been bombed while in hospital.

Do you consider Pakistan to be occupying the land given to it by the British?

Which bits of Israel would you like wiped off the map?

Pakistan was not created by the British. It was created by agreement and negotiation between different Indian political factions during the time of partition. It is not analogous at all. Israel was created by the forced removal and extermination of people of the wrong religion.

Pakistan was created as a specifically Muslim country and its creation caused huge numbers of deaths and mass migration.

But no problems there?

It doesn’t surprise me because we value fairness and equality in this country….these values are literally rammed down our throats at work and in education these days. So when people see the shit being bombed out of innocent women and children, even though it was sparked by a most tragic and horrific attack, it seems disproportionate, illegal and unfair.

Young people know we are supporting Ukraine but sitting back doing nothing about this…

I also blame Bush and Blair. Young people didn’t want the Iraq war and felt they were lied to and powerless to stop our country going to war for a cause they didn’t believe in.

I don’t know enough about the conflict to pass judgment on what is right or wrong, I feel sad for both sides. I worry that there’s a lot of people pulling strings in the background, like with Iraq, and these days nothing is ever as it seems…people don’t know what to believe anymore so they go with their gut instinct and are no doubt heavily influenced by all the messaging they’re exposed to online.

Right of return came two years later.

The concept of the right of return is that because Jews come from the land in question they should have always had the right to return. But they didn't. Because the people who stole the land from them wouldn't let them.

Also, more Jews were forced out of Arab countries, with no right to return, than there were Palestinians who left Israel.