American Youth Do Not Support Israel

Campus clashes: American youth's growing antisemitic sentiment

Pro-Palestinian supporters began to gather on US college campuses before Israelis could even bury their dead. Student groups from a flurry of US universities—Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, New York University, and many more—used the hours after the attacks to pen letters that blamed the victims. Not even a week later, Pro-Palestinian student groups held “Day of Resistance” celebrations on campuses across the US. Fliers with Hamas terrorists attacking Israel circulated to promote the nationwide day of action. 

While pro-Palestinian demonstrations have taken place throughout the US since the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, recent polls show Palestinian supporters are a vocal minority in the US. The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll found that “most voters view Israel favorably, just behind the US military and police.” The US military had an 80% favorability rating with the police and Israel following at 67% and 59%. 

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted after the Hamas attacks had similar findings about the views of America’s young adults towards Israel. According to Quinnipiac, 61% of registered US voters said their “sympathies lie more with the Israelis” and 13% reported their “sympathies lie more with the Palestinians.” 

Young US voters were the outliers in nearly every question pertaining to Israelis or Palestinians.

“With young voters as the exception, there is overwhelming support for making sure Israel has the arms it needs. Which side is to blame for the spiraling crisis? No ambivalence there … it is Hamas, say registered voters, who deeply worry the conflict could metastasize and consume the Middle East,” Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac University polling analyst said.

As the antisemitic rhetoric ramped up on campuses, some professors got in on the action.  

“Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very, very bad people. Irredeemable excrement,” Dr. Mika Tosca, a tenured professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and associate climatologist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), wrote in an Instagram story.  

“Free Palestine ” became the soup du jour on campuses and professors looking to score points with the pro-Palestinian youth movement began to call for violence against Jews. 

“One group of ppl we have easy access to in the US is all these Zionist journalists who spread propaganda & misinformation / they have houses w addresses, kids in school / they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more,” Dr. Jemma Decristo, an assistant professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) tweeted. 

Tosca and Decristo deleted their social media posts. Canary Mission, a group that fights hate speech and antisemitism, preserved records of the postings on their website. 

Advocacy groups such as StandWithUS, an international non-partisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism, have called out many of these campuses, their administrators, and their professors for creating hostile environments for Jewish and Israeli students.  

The anti-Israel sentiment amongst America’s youth has not gone unnoticed by US politicians either.  The White House called the problem “grotesque” and tasked the Vice President’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, to meet with US Jewish leaders and other experts to find solutions to the problem. US Senator Tim Scott and Congressman Mike Lawler introduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

“Colleges and universities have long been breeding grounds of antisemitism, and the recent Hamas attack has taken it to the next level. Now, more than ever, it’s critical that we crack down on antisemitic hate within our own country,” Lawler said in a press release. 

The act has bipartisan support and was endorsed by 10 pro-Israel organizations. It directs the US Department of Education to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for campus investigations about antisemitism. 

Scott, a US Presidential candidate, is mad as hell over the antisemitic attacks.  

“Let me speak to any student who is advocating for murder and terrorism. You should be expelled from the campus,” Scott told a crowd in a fiery speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s leadership conference in Las Vegas over the weekend. “You’re gone,” he continued.  

Scott then told the crowd that “any foreign student who calls for genocide should be deported” and called for US federal funds to be withheld from any university that lets itself become a “megaphone for evil,” telling the crowd “Americans’ tax dollars should not support that crap.”   

Young adults want to feel like they are doing something worthwhile for humanity. They want to participate in social justice campaigns and causes. Sometimes, however, they don’t research the cause before jumping on a bandwagon, and they are vulnerable to peer pressure.

“Young adults want to feel like they are doing something worthwhile for humanity. They want to participate in social justice campaigns and causes. Sometimes, however, they don’t research the cause before jumping on a bandwagon, and they are vulnerable to peer pressure,” Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO StandWithUs, told The Media Line.

Hamas enjoys a 14% favorability rating in the Harvard poll, with 7% of the students polled finding the designated terrorist group to be “very favorable.” 

Hamas is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US and UAE governments.  

“Many have no real understanding of Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls for killing Jews and destroying Israel. That is the case with many of the students who follow these antisemitic campaigns blindly,” Rothstein continued.

Polls may show that something more sinister than miseducation and misunderstanding is at play when it comes to college-aged support of pro-Palestinian activities.

According to the Harvard Poll, a majority of the college-aged people polled believed  that “Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israeli civilians by shooting them, raping and beheading people including whole families, kids and babies” is a factual story. Still, over half of that age group believe the Oct. 7 atrocities, the ones mentioned above, “can be justified by the grievance of Palestinians.”

Hamas murdered over 1,400 civilians and injured another 3,000 in its Oct. 7 attacks. Hamas is currently holding more than 240 civilians as hostages.