Members of Generation Z show growing support for Hamas amid its war with Israel, a poll has found.
Earlier this month, a Harvard CAPS-Harris survey asked respondents about the conflict in the Gaza Strip between Hamas militants and the Israel Defense Forces. The poll asked respondents whom they support more in the war and found that members of the Gen Z age bracket, aged between 18 and 24, express increasing support for Hamas. According to the poll's results, 43 percent of those in this age bracket said they support Hamas, compared with 57 percent of respondents backing Israel.
In March, Harvard CAPS-Harris conducted a similar survey and found that 37 percent of Gen Z respondents said they supported Hamas in the conflict. Sixty-three percent of the Gen Z respondents said they backed Israel.
While a majority of Gen Z respondents still say they support Israel over Hamas, the two polls show rising support for the Palestinian organization, which is an Islamic political party with an armed wing.
Over the past few weeks, college campuses across the country have seen a rise in pro-Palestinian protests calling for schools to end financial ties to Israel. At Columbia University, pro-Palestinian protesters created a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on the campus. On Monday evening, footage on social media showed protesters entering the college's Hamilton Hall and occupying it.
Other college campuses have seen waves of pro-Palestinian demonstrations since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, which left about 1,200 dead, escalated into war. These protests by students and some faculty members have drawn national attention in recent days amid crackdowns by school administrators and law enforcement at several prominent universities. The number of arrests nationwide is approaching 900.
Newsweek has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., via email for comment.
On Monday, Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, told Newsweek via email: "What happens outside the gates has NOTHING to do with the student protest on campus: these are outside groups for which neither students, faculty nor Columbia are responsible." He was referring to videos of protesters outside Columbia's gates who were caught on camera making antisemitic remarks.
"Conflating the two is a malign tactic used to smear the students, which much of the media has shamefully fallen for," Khalidi said.
The new poll also found that support for Hamas over Israel declined as respondents' ages increased. Among those aged between 25 and 34, 64 percent supported Israel while 36 percent backed Hamas. Among those aged 45 to 54, 85 percent supported Israel, compared with 15 percent that sided with Hamas.
In a statement to Newsweek last week, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said, "Hamas is a vicious terrorist organization that has spent decades murdering innocents.... Hamas perpetrated the deadliest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust, which makes them the least credible voice that exists on this subject."
Bates continued: "President Biden has stood against Antisemitism his entire life. And he will never stop. That's why he is carrying out the first-ever national strategy to combat Antisemitism."
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Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
