Why Gen Z is turning against Israel

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : "Leaving me no choice but to leave the pro Israel cause." Owens advertised this response as evidence Kirk was coming closer to her views.
52% : It also stems from the way Israel is framed in higher education and the amount of cynicism young people feel toward the government.
51% : An August Harvard-Harris poll found that 60% of Gen Z voters, ages 18-24, expressed more support for Hamas than for Israel in the Gaza conflict.
51% : The share of this group who had unfavorable views of Israel increased from 35% to 50% over a three-year period.
51% : A study at Northeastern University found that the ratio of pro-Palestinian to pro-Israeli posts on TikTok was 19:1, and that the average view count for pro-Palestinian content was nearly five times higher than pro-Israel content.
50% : In March 2024, Gallup recorded a 26-percentage-point drop in favorability toward Israel among 18-34-year-olds compared to the year prior, with just 38% of the age group having a positive opinion of the country.
50% : Older age demographics each supported Israel at far greater rates than Hamas.
48% : What do the polls say? Polls from the past two years show a decline in support for Israel among U.S. voters on both sides of the political aisle, particularly among younger voters.
47% : A Pew survey from April found that the share of U.S. adults with an unfavorable opinion of Israel increased from 42% in 2022 to 53%.
47% : " Israel has long had its critics on the progressive left, highlighted by the success of democratic socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Mandel said.
46% : "It's a crisis in the Zionist world, in the pro-Israel world.
45% : " For years, anti-Israel rhetoric has largely been isolated to the political left.
45% : "Attitudes towards Jewish people are strongly correlated with views of Israel," Cox said.
44% : Now some American Jews worry a similar sentiment toward Israel, albeit with different ideological motivations, is spreading to young voters on the right.
40% : How did Charlie Kirk view Israel? During a Student Action Summit attended by the Deseret News in July, Kirk repeatedly rebutted comments from students suggesting that Israel exercised covert influence over American domestic or foreign policy.
40% : Clips of destruction in Gaza and videos blaming Israel for U.S. problems quickly go viral and have an emotional appeal for young viewers, according to Dan Cox, the senior fellow in public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute.
39% : Over the past few years, Owens has increasingly focused her commentary on debunked conspiracy theories related to Israel controlling the U.S. government.
38% : " Jenessa Jimoh, a 26-year-old progressive activist in Utah, also cited distrust in institutions as one of the primary drivers behind young voters' views on America's relationship with Israel.
37% : The assassination of Charlie Kirk prompted fierce debate over where the 31-year-old conservative organizer stood on Israel, and where his youth movement was headed in its support for the Jewish state.
37% : Shortly after Kirk's death in Utah, online influencers like Candace Owens, a former Turning Point USA employee, claimed Kirk was on the verge of abandoning his pro-Israel stance, citing private text messages.
36% : "Israel is facing a real problem," among both parties, Bethany Mandel, a Jewish conservative columnist, told the Deseret News.
34% : But the negative shift in attitudes toward Israel cannot be explained only by algorithms, Cox said.
33% : " "Israel is getting CRUSHED on social media and you are losing younger generations of Americans, even among MAGA conservatives," Kirk wrote.
33% : An April 2024 poll by Pew Research found that as young people have developed increasingly negative attitudes toward Israel, the share of adults under 30 with a favorable view of the Israeli people has fallen 17 percentage points.
31% : But the second largest increase in negative opinion of Israel was among Republicans under 50.
30% : When a young attendee asked whether Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, Kirk said, "No, I think that's insane."
30% : " While Jimoh sees criticism of Israel as being an entirely separate issue from antisemitic views toward Jewish people, the polling data shows the two often become linked, according to Cox.
28% : Democrats of all ages viewed Israel negatively, according to the poll.
22% : During a Turning Point USA event two weeks ago, students pressured conservative radio host Glenn Beck -- who was filling in for Kirk -- to condemn Israel's "overwhelming lobby over the U.S. government.
18% : In a May letter to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kirk expressed his "deep love for Israel" and described a negative shift in public opinion toward Israel as reaching the level of "a five-alarm fire.
17% : " When Beck resisted the idea that Israel controlled U.S. officials, a student shouted, "Are you America First or Israel First?" another asked "Where's the evidence?" for the Oct. 7 massacre against Israelis, and a third questioned "the societal taboo around criticisms of Israel.
16% : Following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, thousands of campus protests swept the country, often with overtly anti-semitic messages, condemning Israel.

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