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Notes -
New data from Pew on the Israel-Palestinian topic
Negative views of Israel have increased, but in a unique way according to demographics. 50% of Republican-leaning Americans under 50yo have a negative view, up from 35% in 2022. For the Dem-leaning in this age bracket, there’s been only a 3% shift toward negative views. For 50yo+ Republicans, negative views have increased by just 3% to sit at 23%; but for Dems in this age bracket, there’s been a 13% increase to 66%. Most of the shift in the public’s dislike of Israel has occurred among younger Republicans and older Democrats. This is interesting data, because there’s been an idea circulating that the shift in public perception of Israel is driven by younger minority progressives. And while that’s a big part, the data really tells us that Americans have changed their view in recent years in ways unaccounted for by demographic change, but which can be explained by the war. Because in just three years, from 2022 to 2025, we’re seeing huge shifts in regards to views on Israel while demographics have only changed slightly.
I think this shift is clear when looking at the media young people consume. Theo Von inconspicuously doing an “early life check” on the Sackler family in his interview with JD Vance; Shane Gillis on KillTony a few days ago; the popular youth streamer “iShowSpeed” refusing to talk to people if they mention they are Israeli. Pro-Israel Americans need a feasible game plan for dealing with this shift which doesn’t fall victim to the Streisand Effect. The current strategy of deporting foreign national students is bad, because the negative publicity far outweighs the tiny changes on university campuses. Zone of Interest came out in 2023, and our media reported on October 7th crimes well enough, yet these clearly didn’t move the needle on public favorability. There doesn’t appear to be any youth figure who can shift perceptions.
The problem for pro-Israel propagandists is that their position has only ever been tenable in an environment of bipartisan censorship and the election of Trump destroyed the tools of effective censorship. Obviously the association of Trump and Netanyahu hurts boomer lib support for Israel but at the same time his pivot to social media totally discredited all of the traditional gatekeepers on the right. Israel supporters have always been reliant on the exact same weapons as the "woke" and when they're deprived of those weapons they flounder against the most basic opposition from their right.
Case in point: Douglas Murray, supposedly one of the sharpest champions of the pro-Zionist position debated Dave Smith on Rogan and was reduced to making 2020 level arguments about "trusting the experts". The comment section is an absolute bloodbath, and this between probably the best champion the pro-Israel side has (among Rogan regulars, anyway) and a comedian.
I seek to persuade
You try to convince
They propagandize
Murray was literally shuttled in to Gaza by the IDF and spent over 3 hours on Rogan refusing to make the slightest criticism of Israel, if he isn't a "propagandist" then I'm not sure who is
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