Young Americans are turning against Israel, and that’s Israel’s fault, says New York Times columnist Ezra Klein. Is he right?
In a significant January 27 op-ed, Klein pointed to a recent poll showing only 27% of Americans aged 18 to 29—known as “Gen Z”—are more sympathetic to Israel than to the Palestinian Arabs, as compared to 63% of Americans who are 65 or older. According to Klein, that’s because of the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since young Americans “know only Netanyahu’s Israel.”
Does that mean all Gen Zers were pro-Israel when the left-of-center Yair Lapid was prime minister fourteen months ago? Hardly. The real reason for hostility toward Israel among that age bracket is their ignorance of the history and facts of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the specific policies of a particular prime minister. Israel is not to blame if many young people choose to base their views on misleading Instagram photos, biased college professors, and radical ideologies that falsely paint Israel as a “white supremacist” state.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member