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Why Has Support for Israel Weakened among Younger Americans?

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - A new Pew Research Center survey released last week indicates that while Israel remains broadly popular among Americans, support is weak and growing weaker among young people. 56% of those under 30 have a favorable view of Israel, while 61% have a favorable opinion of the Palestinians. That's a potential demographic catastrophe for the pro-Israel movement. Those Americans who grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust and Israel's existential battles for survival in 1948, 1967 and 1973 are likely to sympathize with the Jewish state. Those who came of age in the last 40 years - when Israel has increasingly been falsely depicted as an oppressor of an "indigenous people" or even as an "apartheid state" - are more likely to think ill of it and view Palestinians as deserving of sympathy. Israel's continued presence in the West Bank has everything to do with repeated Palestinian rejections of Israeli offers of statehood and peace, and little to do with the policies of Israeli governments. Since, to this day, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas reject the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn, the continued "occupation" is their fault - not Israel's. The failure of American media, mainstream politicians and the foreign-policy establishment to accept these facts as most Israelis have done is why so many have accepted the false narrative about Palestinian victimization that has impacted public opinion.
2022-06-02 00:00:00
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