Wide generational gap persists on views around Israel-Hamas war: poll

[Beastly Boy]

A wide generational gap is apparent in Americans’ views surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas, with the youngest demographic differing from the public at large, according to a new poll.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll found that two-thirds of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 believe Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated that way, while 73 percent of all voters said this notion is false.

Mark Penn, the chairman of the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, said that as additional research is conducted into the knowledge about Israel and Hamas possessed by 18-to-24-year-olds compared with the rest of the public, the more “unbelievable” the findings are.
He said the finding that two-thirds of the youngest voters view Jewish people as oppressors after 6 million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust “stands out as representative of [Generation] Z’s attitude towards Jews and Israelis.”

--snip--

But the youngest age group differed from others in how calls for genocide on campus should be handled. About three-quarters of all voters said students who call for genocide of Jewish people should face consequences, but just less than half of those 18 to 24 said the same.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wide-generational-gap-persists-views-222741791.html

[Beastly Boy]

3. 140,000 civilians were killed in Hiroshima. This doesn't make young people in the US any smarter.

You did read the OP, didn't you? You know that your response has nothing to do with the OP, don't you?

Deflecting from the subject only reinforces the findings reported in the article.

[TexasDem69]

26. There's zero evidence that Israel has committed war crimes

None. You can keep calling it war crimes every time you post but that doesn’t change the facts. How about calling for the release of all hostages seized by Hamas and the surrender of all of Hamas’ murderers and rapists? That is the single most effective way to end this war that Hamas started. It might be the only effective way.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. No, there's evidence:

Experts say Hamas and Israel are committing war crimes in their fight

Human Rights Watch: The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime

Amnesty International: Damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families in Gaza

But a growing chorus of international experts – including some former U.S. government war crimes officials – say Israel's bombing of civilian areas is a clear violation of the internationally recognized rules of armed conflict.

“I have very serious concerns about their compliance with the law of war in Gaza based on what I’m seeing,” attorney Brian Finucane, who spent nearly a decade as a State Department adviser on the law of armed conflict, said in an interview. One of the biggest concerns, said Finucane, who left the State Department in 2021, involves “how Israel is defining military objectives, and whether those definitions are consistent with the law of war.”

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/israel-hamas/2023/12/08/israel-war-crimes-gaza/71731325007/

[TexasDem69]

29. The opinion of a few anti-Israeli organizations

Isn’t evidence. I don’t think you understand the meaning of “evidence”

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. I'm not sure you understand the meaning of "anti-Israeli"

and so it's pointless conversing with you in a thread about Israel.

[Celerity]

34. +1

[Cha]

38. Rec TY

[Basic LA]

2. I guess the big divide here on DU...

...has been between those here who view Israel's response as obviously barbaric & grotesque & over the top, and those who view it as obviously justified, measured, & correct.
And we just can't get thru to each other. This division extends beyond DU of course. But we can really see it right here, splitting us in two.

[Beastly Boy]

5. The article adresses one of the major reasons for such division.

Not specific to DU, of course.

Turns out there are objectively measurable causes for it.

[yardwork]

7. I disagree with that characterization of the divide on DU.

I see the divide as between those who view all war and acts of terrorism as "barbaric and grotesque and over the top" and seek a peaceful, equitable solution to a decades' long problem, vs. people who appear to be influenced by a global propaganda campaign that uses antisemitic tropes to cast "the Jews" as evil and barbaric, and "Palestinian children" as the only innocent victims in the world. This latter group also blames President Biden because something something propaganda, and encourages others to vote against him.

I would hope that 100% of DUers fall in the former group, but YMMV.

[David__77]

17. Interesting use of quotes around Palestinian children.

[yardwork]

20. As you may know, there's an ancient antisemitic trope.

It involves Jews killing children. There are plenty of children who are suffering and killed all over the world, but for ... reasons... all we hear about are the children killed by Jews.

[Basic LA]

25. We don't need ancient tropes.

But when over 6,600 kids are slaughtered, & possibly thousands more buried alive in a couple months, that seems noteworthy. That seems monstrous.

[Happy Hoosier]

42. I think that oversimplifies things.

I think there is a wide spectrum between those extremes.

For example, I think calling for a unilateral ceasefire serves Hamas' interests and the one "must" of this crisis is that Hamas has to go. But that doesn't mean I think Israel's response has been "measured & correct." There are elements in the Israeli right-wing who would be fine with entirely removing Palestinians from Gaza and annexing it and to that end think attacks on civilians are justified. They are wrong. Some IDF operations has demonstrated a lack of due care.

That doesn't mean I think Hamas should be permitted to continue in power. And the reality is that Hamas will only be removed by force. And given that they have deeply embedded themselves in the civilian population, it means that removing them is gonna mean a lot of dead civilians.

[The Magistrate]

4. Mark Penn, Sir?

This the one we all know from of old, or someone new saddled with the same name?

To the degree that polling requires judgement on the part of the pollster, in framing questions and weighting results, I would put little stock in any numbers the familiar Mark Penn produces on opinion among the populace at large.

That said, the phenomenon is real. The divide seems to be between people whose views of the world were shaped by the Cold War: a residual loyalty to a comrade in arms lingers among the older, and never was felt by the younger. It's more virulent on the left because left attitudes in the matter are largely inherited from a Soviet-infected 'anti-colonialism', which while couched in terms of liberation, intended merely a swapping of imperial overlords. The 'de-colonization' line is more re-creationist cosplay then political thought, akin to folks who dress in Civil War costume and turn out for games of 'let's pretend it was us back in the old days'....

[yardwork]

10. Sir, I believe there is a simpler reason for the divide.

Younger people are being targeted with online propaganda flowing through their preferred modes of communication (TikTok, Discord, other platforms). Like MAGAs, they believe a construct that simply doesn't exist. This propaganda plays on the isolation caused by COVID and the woeful lack of understanding of 20th century history (or any history, really) among younger generations as a whole. It turns out there's a lot of antisemitism simmering below the surface in our culture, too.

Mr. Putin is making clever use of this opportunity to try to remove a thorn in his side and return his puppet to the U.S. presidency.

[xmas74]

32. I logged into Tiktok yesterday

And was bombarded with nonstop Palestine content. Quite a bit included anti Semitic comments and more pro HAMAS comments and content than expected. After watching the content it was easy to see that much of it was crafted to insinuate that Hamas are freedom fighters, all Jews are instigators,etc.

I logged onto Facebook this morning after someone messaged me about a thread in a private group. The groups is mostly apolitical and has nearly 30,000 members. The thread was about what conspiracy theories they believed were true. I was shocked at how many younger women stated the Holocaust was faked, that there is a cabal of Jewish brokers selling young children to Hollywood elites for adrenochrome, how they run all the pharmaceuticals and murdered a man who discovered the cure to cancer. A big one I read several times was that Jews paid Chinese scientists to create covid to be used as population control.

It's out of hand.

[yardwork]

35. Horrible, isn't it?

We see some echoes of it on DU.

It's an ancient libel against Jewish people to accuse them of killing non-Jewish children. These are old, old antisemitic tropes. And this idea that Jewish people are incredibly powerful and somehow run the world... All these lies. This is what led to the Holocaust.

[Beastly Boy]

11. Notwithstanding Mark Penn's personal remarks,

I don't see any reason to doubt the accuracy of the poll itself, conducted by the rather reputable Harris Insights and Analytics (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/harris-insights-analytics/)

The age divide itself is a phenomenon perceived long ago, notably summarized by George Bernard Shaw more than 100 years ago: “Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world—and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children!”

Apparently, the current poll statistically confirms his observation.

[yardwork]

12. It's possible, of course, that the poll itself is propaganda.

I believe the ultimate goal of this propaganda is to get voters to turn on Biden. Peer pressure is one mechanism. On DU we keep hearing that "young voters are very upset so Biden has to blah blah blah..."

The "blah blah blah" they've been told is essential is actually impossible. The U.S. can't abandon our only ally that is a democracy in the Middle East. In any case, the Republicans would never agree to it. Abandoning Israel would lead to a real genocide. It's not happening. So... the goal is to get those people not to vote for Biden, and then Trump wins.

[The Magistrate]

15. I Quite Agree, Ma'am

The far left allying with the far right to take down the center-left while the center-right looks on bemused is an old, old story. In the last days of Wiemar, Red Guards and Storm Troopers joined to attack Social-Democrat rallies. One of the persistent delusions on the far left is that the onset of fascist rule will galvanize the masses into full-bore rebellion under far left leadership. It didn't work ninety years ago and it won't work today.

[boston bean]

41. See Susan Sarandon for evidence of this.

These far left loonies are as much a threat to democracy as magats. There is a place on the spectrum where they overlap in regards to the outcome, ie tearing down our democracy.

[The Magistrate]

13. If This Is Accurate, Sir, He Had A Hand In Design And Interpretation

"Mark Penn, the chairman of the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll...."

I agree there is a generational divide, and that his poll echoes many other surveys and much anecdote hardly invalidates the common observation.

[Beastly Boy]

21. I am assuming that your header refers to this parcicular Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, and not to

Harvard CAPS-Harris polling in general.
I am not discounting the possibility that the poll has Mark Penn's fingerprints all over it. However, this poll had been conducted on a monthly basis for quite some time, and the 365 ratings of the pollster had been consistently high regardless of whether Mark Penn influenced the outcomes. Or didn't influence them.

[The Magistrate]

22. All I Know, Sir, Is What's In the Article

And if he heads the shop, the shop is suspect.

The poll doesn't deviate from common knowledge, I distrust some of the frills adorning it.

[Beastly Boy]

23. Truth be told, I distrust all polling, no matter who heads the shop.

Still, I prefer polling data flavored with a grain of salt to common knowledge that denotes little more than confluence of opinions.

[Think. Again.]

6. I'm going to have to...

...take a close look at the poll questions themselves, but the article states that when asked about the Israelhamas conflict, respondents said "Jewish people" were this or that.

If the poll specifically said "Jewish people" when asking about a conflict engaged in by the state of Israel, I would say the results are flawed and inflammatory.

It could also be the fault of The Hill writer, who may be replacing the poll's use of "Israel" with "Jewish people".

I spend a lot of time reminding people that residents of Gaza, or Palestinians in general, are not neccesarily hamas terrorists, and the same holds true for Jewish people the world over who are not neccesarily controlling Israel's military.

[yardwork]

8. Not necessarily, but possibly?

[Think. Again.]

9. Yes, just as being American ...

...means you are possibly maga.

[Igel]

16. Link

https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/HHP_Dec23_KeyResults.pdf

Relevant slides are pdf page 47ff.

Pdf page 57 has question, "Do you think that Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors or is that a false ideology?"

Note that some can't just say "Jew" or "Palestinian," because somehow using adjectives as nouns, a very old practice in English, is somehow dehumanizing. (Probably my using a bare quantifier like "some" instead of "some people" would cause them to go apoplectic.)

[Think. Again.]

18. Thank You!

That clarifies a lot!

The question about Jewish people (thanks for the 'dehumanizing' heads-up!) is asked under the specific heading "Anti-semitism" which follows the prior specific heading "Israel-hamas War", so my fears of conflation were mistaken.

The 'Hill' article did not make that distinction clear, in my opinion.

[Calculating]

14. Some people always seem to side with the underdog in a fight

Regardless of whether the underdog is actually right or deserves support.

IMO Israel has the right to do whatever it takes to stomp Hamas out after the horrible unjustified massacre on the 7th.

[Think. Again.]

19. Including harming and killing...

...uninvolved bystanders?

[TheKentuckian]

30. That is war and at least doubly so when the aggressor

runs to hide behind and purposely embeds itself into its population.

Add to that a significant portion of the population actively supportive many to the point of effectively acting as a reserve force and how does it not become an ugly but necessary human disaster?

[Think. Again.]

31. Sigh...

This is like the 6th time I've had to re-post this...

From foreignaffairs.com:

"The argument that the entire population of Gaza can be held responsible for Hamas’s actions is quickly discredited when one looks at the facts. Arab Barometer, a research network where we serve as co-principal investigators, conducted a survey in Gaza and the West Bank days before the Israel-Hamas war broke out. The findings, published here for the first time, reveal that rather than supporting Hamas, the vast majority of Gazans have been frustrated with the armed group’s ineffective governance as they endure extreme economic hardship. Most Gazans do not align themselves with Hamas’s ideology, either. Unlike Hamas, whose goal is to destroy the Israeli state, the majority of survey respondents favored a two-state solution with an independent Palestine and Israel existing side by side.

Full article: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas

Non-paywall: https://archive.is/7mWq0

[TheKentuckian]

36. Which negates nothing I said.

Majority is not relevant to there being a significant portion that does support or even is a part of Hamas.

The military challenges are exactly the same.

[Arazi]

24. Has a lot to do with news sources too I bet

Tik Tok and Reddit vs MSM

The antisemitism on Tik Tok is epic for example with a lot of deliberate disinfo.

I’m certain there’s orchestrated propaganda aimed at those audiences that’s exploded in the past few years

[TheKentuckian]

27. Just the same old garbage recycled and repackaged

that Arab nations that are promoters of state based terrorism and the Soviets/Russians have been poisoning the world with especially since 1967.

They are leveraging social media and are being more effective than ever but they are not going to win.


A lie may make it around the world two or three times before the truth gets its pants on but it will get in the race.

[gulliver]

37. Many younger people haven't been alive as long as older people

It's very common in fact.

[Beastly Boy]

40. Your recollection of WW2 leaves much to be desired.

I don't recall Jews invading Germany or killing raping German women, or killing any Germans before the Nazis sent to concentration camps to be slaughtered by the millions.

Nor do I recall Jews calling for annihilation of Germany before they were rounded up and sent to places built especially for killing them.

Nor do I recall Jewish militants using Jewish civilians as human shields.

Nor do I recall any Jewish militants, terrorists included, digging tunnels under Jewish homes, placing rocket launchers in Jewish schools and synagogues, and hiding their weapons in Jewish hospitals.

.As far as I recall, they were targeted for being Jews and nothing else.

Equating Jews to Nazis, including doing so "in a small way" is a pinnacle of antisemitism. It is not only a lie, it is an offensive lie.

I don't alert anyone for violating DU terms of use on principle. But it appears your post is a gross violation, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone else alerted you. You should self-delete your post.

[The Magistrate]

43. What You Can Recall, Sir, Of Nazis And WWII

Is that Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem before the war, and leading light of Arab Palestinian nationalists at the time, wound up in the court of Adolph Hitler, praising his extermination campaign, and actively recruiting co-religionists for service in the Waffen SS (mostly from Albania for use on occupation duty in Serbia).

Nationalist leadership in the various Arab countries almost to a man sided openly with Hitler in the run up to WWII, and during its course for so long as they were able. The Anti-Semitism of the Nazis was as great an attraction as Nazi hostility to England (which of course Nazi propaganda presented as run really by Jews). Claims the Arab Nationalists of the period aligned with Nazis only because they, too, wanted English power broken just won't wash: here, nascent anti-colonialism and Anti-Semitism were an alloy, not an amalgam.





"I don't make the rules, I just draw up the lists."

[Beastly Boy]

44. That's the proverbial cherry on the cake.

The ties of Arab leaders to Hitler's regime directly connects the antisemitism of the Arab world today to that of the Holocaust in Europe.

To paraphrase the poster I replied to: in a small way, they have begun to resemble what they admire.....