News

New poll: 25% of U.S. Jews think Israel is apartheid state

A quarter of Jewish voters polled by the Jewish Electorate Institute said they believed Israel is an apartheid state. This number rises to 38% for voters under 40.

A new poll of Jewish voters in the United States found that a quarter of them believe Israel is an apartheid state. The survey also indicates that support for Israel is declining among the group, specifically among younger Jews.

The Jewish Electorate Institute asked 800 Jewish voters about Israel and U.S. policy. Some notable findings:

  • 25% said they believed Israel is an apartheid state.
  • 34% think Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States.
  • 22% think Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.

When applied strictly to younger Jewish voters, these numbers all rise. 38% of Jews under 40 think Israel’s an apartheid state, 43% think Israel’s racism is comparable to the United States’, and 33% think the country is carrying out a genocide against Palestinian people. In fact, 20% of Jewish voters under 40 said that Israel does not have a right to exist.

38% of respondents said they aren’t emotionally attached to Israel. These numbers also jump among younger voters: 41% of Jews under 40 said they didn’t have an attachment.

54% of Jewish voters said that they’re very concerned about antisemitism, but the survey suggests that right-attempts to smear progressive House members and Palestine activists have largely failed. Just 22% of respondents said that antisemitism was originating from left-wing groups and individuals while 61% said it was coming from the right. 77% disagreed with former president Trump’s assertion that Democratic Jews are disloyal to Israel.

71% of respondents said they support the U.S. sending aid to Israel, but 58% said it should be restricted to deter settlement expansion. Again, the numbers shift among younger Jews. Just 60% of them said aid was important.

34 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

I wish one of the survey’s questions had been written more clearly, specifically the one comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to US racism.

I’ve heard apologists of Zionist racism make just this point, meaning that, like the US, Israel has a history that is trying its best to overcome – “Look, is the US free of racism? Of course not, so why pick on Israel? We, too, struggle with becoming more fair to minorities, just as you Americans do. Same thing”.

Of course, it’s not the same thing at all. While the US assuredly remains a racist society in many ways, our racism is not explicitly codified in our laws, as is the case in Israel. Our leaders, across the political spectrum, have not declared that incorrect ethnicities will never outnumber whites/Christians. Municipalities in the US do not have written codes that exclude Blacks or Jews from buying homes there, no matter how desperately some members of those communities might wish they did.

I know that racist wishes may be accomplished in under-the-table ways here, but surely national laws and regulations that codify overt racism are a step down the ladder of infamy than implicit racism is, damnable as it may be.

So, a survey question which disambiguates “Israel’s just like the US, racism-wise” from “Israel’s racism is of a different sort from that found in the US” would be welcome.

1 of 2

@- Jack Green – your answers/replies are of a piece: Israel is good, just, moral, heroic, democratic and worthy of universal respect. All your superbly crafted hasbara comments are meant to support this line and it must be exhausting for you to put in all that work and then have an MW reader immediately clean your clock, and thoroughly. I will limit my response to two comments you made:

1) “…those who complain about West Bank Palestinians’ mistreatment under occupation by the Jewish state of Israel are unfair, even antisemitic, because they don’t talk about their mistreatment under occupation by the Arab state of Jordan.”

This comment fascinated me because according to your subjective definition of antisemitism people can be guilty of committing it if “they don’t talk about” what you consider to be exculpatory, comparative history. If I understand you correctly one can be guilty of antisemitism not only for actions carried out but also by not acting, speaking, etc. Would your indictment of those not talking about “the Arab State of Jordan” still be in effect in your eyes if they did not know anything about Jordan or if they did but saw considerable differences in the way Israel treats Palestinians in the Occupied Territories on the one hand and the way Jordan did on the other? It seems to me one must abide by your pov or else you will smear them with the accusation that they are antisemitic. Do I understand you correctly? Do you understand how counterproductive to the discourse is that you seized on this weapon – there is no other word for it – and so early in the discourse?

2 of 2

2) “Unlike other occupiers (China, Russia, Turkey, Morocco) Israel offered to end the occupation in return for a peace treaty. Israel is still waiting.”

Two elements to my reply, the first of which is that while it is true that Israel has in the past traded land for peace (Sinai) and withdrawn from lands it had invaded and/or occupied (Gaza, Lebanon) Israel has never honestly considered “ending” the Occupation in the West Bank. It has agreed to highly technical/detailed tactical exchanges/swaps all the while keeping total control of all significant aspects of Israeli governmental rule over the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants – checkpoints, economy, access, travel, housing, etc..

This can all be validated using exclusively Israeli/Zionist sources. A pro-forma, performative, US-government-pleasing easing of the daily oppressions Palestinians endure is all that has ever really been considered by any Israeli government. Even Israeli diplomats and politicians will say this publicly, and they have.

My other point is that invading, seizing, occupying and de-populating Palestine – all of Palestine – of its indigenous inhabitants has been Zionist policy since at least 1897 as can be seen by studying JNF and other Zionist agency posters, IOW by analyzing Zionism’s own territorial policies as publicly promoted at the time:

View 200+ Zionist Published Posters With Palestine-Specific Maps/Captions:

View 400+ Zionist Published Posters Dedicated to Hasbara/Public Diplomacy/Propaganda

Note: I have already addressed here at MW why the hasbaritic defense of Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank via comparisons with other occupations is irrelevant to Americans: because those other countries have not infiltrated US political institutions – thereby implicating Americans directly in Israel’s Occupation. Do you get that?

Jack Green, I will reply to you but only if you provide detailed, empirical data from unbiased sources to support your claims/positions. I care nothing at all about your opinions.

Q: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to articulate these responses or to fail to articulate them? Please explain your answer.

Seriously, since when has any jewish group agreed on anything?? Some of the oldest ‘jewish jokes’ deal exactly with that trope.

South African MP Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe wrote in the San Francisco Examiner, “As a black South African who lived under apartheid, this system was implemented in South Africa to subjugate people of color and deny them a variety of their rights. In my view, Israel cannot be compared to apartheid in South Africa. Those who make the accusation expose their ignorance of what apartheid really is.” Meshoe made this statement upon visiting San Francisco, where he was shocked to learn of posters posted within the city comparing Israel to the apartheid regime in South Africa. He asserted, “As a black South African under apartheid, I, among other things, could not vote, nor could I freely travel the landscape of South Africa. No person of color could hold high government office. The races were strictly segregated at sports arenas, public restrooms, schools and on public transportation. People of color had inferior hospitals, medical care and education. If a white doctor was willing to take a black patient, he had to examine him or her in a back room or some other hidden place. In my numerous visits to Israel, I did not see any of the above.