Younger Australians most negative about Israel and Jews: Crossroads25 survey

Younger Australians have the most negative views about both Israel and Jews and strongly sympathise with Palestinians. Greens voters are the most negative of all political cohorts towards Israel but least negative about Jews.

The Jewish Independent's Crossroads25 survey found strong differences among Australians across four key demographic measures – age, political alignment, gender and region.

Crossroads25 identified a significant correlation between age and sympathies over the Middle East: an average of 40% of those aged 18-34 were sympathetic to the Palestinians but only 10% from this age bracket said their sympathies were with Israel.

The patterns were reversed at very similar levels for older Australians: an average of 30% of people 65 and over said their sympathies lay with Israel, while an average of 13% from this cohort sympathised with the Palestinians.

If this trend continues, we can expect a dramatic change to the current overall average, which found 16% sympathise with Israel, 20% with Palestinians, and 38% said they had equal sympathies, with the remainder unsure or preferring not to say.

While the biases of younger Australians are not surprising given the leading role played by young people in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and last year’s university campus protests, they point to major policy challenges for Jewish and political leaders, and the importance of education about the Middle East as well as the Holocaust.

The views of young people were far more anti-Israel than the overall sample.  An average of 13% of people under 30 disagreed with Israel’s right to exist as a homeland (compared to the overall average of 6%), and 19% of those under 30 disagreed with its right to defend itself (the average was 7%).