A new survey has revealed a sharp generational split in United States attitudes towards Israel’s war on Gaza, with younger voters showing unprecedented support for Hamas as Israel carries out a genocide.
The poll, conducted by The Harris Poll and HarrisX between 20 and 21 August among 2,025 registered voters, asked respondents: “In the Israel-Hamas conflict, do you support more Israel or more Hamas?”
Sixty percent of voters aged 18–24 expressed greater support for Hamas, in stark contrast to older demographics, where backing for Israel rose steadily: 65 percent among ages 25–34, 70 percent among ages 35–44, 74 percent among ages 45–54, 84 percent among those aged 55–64, and 89 percent of voters over 65.
I think my millennial age cohort is in the “anti-slavery/anti-John Brown” camp. They know the institution is bad (Israel, slavery) but don’t support violence against it because they think violence is inherently bad.
Y’know, morons.
I’m a Millennial and I don’t think violence is a good thing, but I believe you do need to judge these things comparatively. And the only real comparison that can be made here is between the military forces of both sides - the IDF vs. Hamas. And, by raw numbers alone, Hamas is the more ethical fighting force. Using Israel’s own numbers, Hamas does a much, much better job at avoiding civilian casualties than the IDF. I can’t make a judgment on the ethics of violence, but I can look at the ratios of civilian to military casualties on both sides. And by the numbers alone, Hamas kills proportionally fewer civilians and takes far fewer hostages than the IDF. That seems the only metric to judge the ethics of an armed force. By numbers alone, Hamas is objectively far more ethical than the IDF.
That’s a reasonable view, but there are a lot of people in our generational cohort who actually believe pacifism is the only justified response to oppression. In their minds, no amount of crimes done by Israel can ever justify Palestinian violence.