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.

You won’t be

You won’t be

With respect, possibly not for you either as you don't seem to know anything about it.

You do realise that 20%of Israelis are Muslim Arabs don’t you? With full rights. Arab MPs etc. No Jewish equivalence in any Arab lands though.

In case anyone is wondering, the region was ruled by more than ten different powers or empires after the Roman Republic, most recently the Ottoman Empire, a section was partitioned under British rule, and from there part of that region became the State of Israel.

Implying that there was a specific unchanging indigenous, non-Jewish population for 2000 years is vastly wide of the mark.

Why would you care about the deaths of those Muslims? They’re not being killed by Jews!

Agreed. It exists due to the British stealing Palestinian land. Mr Balfour is a high ranking devil that's for sure.
Nearly a century of occupation.
I hope the younger geberation will help remove this false occupation and the land fully returned. I hope I am alive to see this moment.

Thank you for your candour, I guess?

Ruling a region doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the local population was Palestinain. You're clutching at straws here. No one has denied the different rulers.

The Indian region was ruled for over a century, but did the population change?

I know more than your one liners though.

Doubt it.

Do you believe Palestinains should have a sovereign state?

Will you have an opinion when Palestinians mudder Jewish children too? Oh they already did but you remain silent.

Yes. But you don't seem to have answered the questions that you were quoting which is a bit odd since you bothered to quote them.

Can you answer my questions please?

1. do you believe Israel has the right to exist?
2. if not, do you think this about any other country in the world?

I am appalled by the survey and hope it does not reflect the population at large. Israel has every right to exist and I cannot believe that anyone thinks otherwise - it is blatant antisemitism.

I think this question could be taken in a modern context or an historical one.

Should the British have divided lands in the way that they did to create Israel? Arguably no. You could say that Israel should not exist and it was only created to effectively get rid of Jewish refugees from Europe post WWII because, despite the modern rhetoric at the time neither Europe nor America wanted to deal with such a traumatised population and they were dealing with domestic anti-Semitism. It was a solution that suited the UK for antisemitic reasons.

However ask into the context of Israel being established and there, you can't just take it away either now. It IS a homeland for Israelis.

I think this is a question which you'll get very different answers from, from the same people, depending on the phrasing of the question and the context in which it's presented.

The Indian region was ruled for over a century, but did the population change?

There's a bit if a difference between 100 and 2000 years. Of course there were waves of immigration and diasporas over that time period.
Not just in that region either, pretty much any country in Europe and Asia had wave after wave of immigration and population change over the last two millennia.

I actually attended some lectures of Ilan Pappe when he was still faculty in Israel before he became persona non grata there. I guess I would be considered a lefty and both I and many I know are horrified by the current government and feel completely desperate.

But, my family fled from Yemen in the 20s before Israel was a state, with just the clothes on their back. I am not being hyperbolic. That isn't a myth. Fortunately they were permitted to settle in the British Mandate, they weren't welcome anywhere else. Their mother tongue was Arabic and they were forced out after millenia of Jeiwsh-Arab life in Yemen. I don't think I would be welcome back there either. Where would everyone go now?

Personally I would welcome a return to the 1967 borders as unlikely as that is now. I abhor the settler movement and the grip they have on Bibi. But I don't think that's what many of the protesters and anti-Israel people want. I think they would sooner the state disappear, and perhaps being charitable magically morph into a place if harmony for all. But that is completely unrealistic. And the 20% Arab population of Israel proper would largely agree.

I think this is a question which you'll get very different answers from, from the same people, depending on the phrasing of the question and the context in which it's presented.

You'll get people arguing that 'from the river to the sea' isn't talking about 'without Israel' but I think it's time people started realising that that is what people are meaning.

This. Of course it’s appalling the way Hamas behaved in Israel in October, but to punish Palestinian children for it, for months?

So Israel should be wiped off the map?

Some definitely are.

But I find the question itself problematic because it's essentially introducing bias too.

It should be better phrased.

And yet, despite the phrasing, it was only the youngest age category that said in the majority that Israel didn't have the right to exist.

Back to the question.

However, the state of Israel was created, rightly or wrongly, it has been in existence for over 70 years now, so it is here to stay.

However, how the government of Israel conducts itself can be questioned.

When the government acts so disproportionately against Palestinian citizens in front of the world's eyes, this cannot be ignored.

The world was shocked at the horrific torture, kidnapping or killing of approximately 1500 innocent people in Israel by Hamas.

But the Israeli government's wantonly disproportionate response of decimating a society of 2 million plus people has been shocking in the extreem. So extreem, is it any wonder that the atrocity in Israel pales in comparison. Is it any wonder that the majority of the world cannot look at the country of Israel in the same way they did a year ago? That they cannot believe a supposed beacon of democracy in the Middle East is caple of such barbarity, bombing innocent women, children and men to pieces, killing whole families, denying survivors the basics of life, access to food, water and shelter.

Seeing aid trucks on the way from Israel to the starving in Gaza, ransacked by some Israeli people, with food trodden into the ground, so their 'enemy' can't have it. All why, the police and Army stand by letting it happen!

And while all this is happening to Gaza, in the West Bank, some Israeli settlers go on the rampage, evicting Palestinians from their farms, kill some of them, again while the Israeli police and the IDF turn a blind eye.

I simply cannot comprehend the biblical levels revenge. It has long been the case that if a member of a family in West Bank engages in actions against the government, the response has been to target the rest of the family by destroying their home, in other words, collective punishment. This has been taken to a whole new level in Gaza.

When will the desire for total revenge stop? When will the killing be enough for the Israeli government? When will governments such as the US, the UK , Germany stop hiding behind collective guilt about about the Holocaust, dreadful as it was, and say to Israel they have gone too far and they must stop? When will they apply the same standards to Israel and apply meaningful sanctions to them. When will they start listening and acting immediately on the warnings of the world's humantarian organisations, the UN the ICC and the ICJ and stop slandering them or threatening them with sanctions for speaking out and doing their job?

Nowhere else, would it be acceptable where if a gunman, held an innocent person in front of them, for a policeman or soldier to shoot through that person to kill the gunman and the innocent person and for them to say it was justified to kill the innocent person to take out the gunman. To do so on such a massive scale is barbarous.

So, the above is why Israel has lost the moral high ground with not only young people, but of a significant number of people of all ages around the world.

None of that explains why young people think Israel doesn't have the right to exist as opposed to needing regime change.

Because they have been groomed into thinking that by antisemites who would see Israel wiped off the map.