How Many Young Americans Support Hamas?
Here’s what recent polls show about sympathy for Palestinians, approval of Hamas, and skepticism about the Holocaust.
IN THE TWO MONTHS SINCE HAMAS massacred more than one thousand Israelis, there’s been a lot of fear, anger, and debate about anti-Israel demonstrations, pro-Hamas statements, and threats against Jews in the United States. Much of the outcry has focused on college campuses, culminating a few days ago in the resignation of the president of the University of Pennsylvania.
But how broad—and how dangerous—are the anti-Israel sentiments shared by many young Americans? How many sympathize with Hamas or its violence? How many are hostile to Jews, as opposed to the Israeli government? Here’s what we can glean from polls taken since October 7.
TO BEGIN WITH, EVERY SURVEY shows that young American adults are much more pro-Palestinian than their elders are. In most polls, respondents between the ages of 18 and 29—I’ll call them under-30s—express more sympathy with Palestinians than with Israel. Sometimes the balance shifts toward Israel when respondents between ages 30 and 34 are added to the mix, but sometimes it doesn’t. In a Quinnipiac poll taken last month, respondents younger than 35 were almost twice as likely to say they primarily sympathized with “the Palestinians” (52 percent) as to say they sympathized primarily with “the Israelis” (29 percent).
Unlike their elders, under-30s are slightly more likely to say that “America should give more support to Palestinians than Israel” than to say we should give more to Israel than to Palestinians. They’re also a bit more likely to affirm the importance of protecting Palestinians than to affirm the importance of protecting Israel. And when judging “information about the Israel-Hamas war,” they’re more likely to distrust Israeli officials than to distrust Palestinian officials.
When pollsters cross-tabulate age with party, the gap often widens. In a Wall Street Journal survey taken two weeks ago, Democrats under 50 were three times as likely to sympathize primarily with “the Palestinian people” (35 percent) as they were with “the Israeli people” (13 percent). For Democrats 50 and older, sympathies were more with the Israelis (22 percent) than the Palestinians (12 percent).
The breadth of antipathy toward Israel varies depending on the question. Thirty-three percent of under-30s agree that Israel is “an apartheid state”; only 16 percent disagree. Fifty-one percent agree that “the State of Israel has the right to exist,” but 19 percent disagree. Twenty-two percent of under-35s (and 26 percent of under-25s) say “the long-term answer to the Israel-Palestinian dispute” is for “Israel to be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians.” (Most prefer a two-state solution.)
THAT’S THE OVERALL PICTURE of young Americans’ affinity for the Palestinians. But how do these Americans feel about Hamas?
The first thing you’ll notice in recent polls is that under-30s, unlike their elders, are closely divided on whom to blame for the current war. In a November Yahoo! News/YouGov poll, they were almost as likely to say that Israel was entirely or mostly “responsible for the current hostilities” (37 percent) as to say that Hamas was entirely or mostly responsible (41 percent). Every other age cohort decisively blamed Hamas. In a Pew survey taken two weeks ago, under-30s were almost as likely to say that the “Israeli government” bore a lot of responsibility “for Israel and Hamas currently being at war” (42 percent) as to say that Hamas bore such responsibility (46 percent). When Pew analyzed these numbers by party, it found that Democrats under 30 were more likely to say that Israel bore a lot of responsibility (55 percent) than to say that Hamas did (44 percent).
Another poll, taken in November by the Marquette Law School, challenged respondents to take sides. It asked: “When it comes to Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, should the U.S. support Israel, support Hamas or not take a position?” Only 5 percent of registered voters said the United States should support Hamas, but 16 percent of under-30s chose that answer. Twenty-three percent preferred to support Israel; 61 percent said the United States shouldn’t take a position.
Hamas’s favorability ratings are in the same ballpark. In a Wall Street Journal/Ipsos poll taken less than two weeks after the October 7 massacre, 13 percent of under-30s expressed a favorable view of Hamas. Weeks later, after a lot more carnage in Gaza, a mid-November Yahoo/YouGov poll found that 18 percent of under-30s expressed a favorable view of Hamas.
The most alarming numbers have come from surveys taken by HarrisX for Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies. Unlike other pollsters, the Harvard-Harris team has reported cross-tabulations not just for Americans under age 35 or 30, but specifically for those between the ages of 18 and 24. Among these under-25s:
60 percent said “Hamas and Israel both have fairly equal just causes.” (The alternative answer was that “there is no moral equivalency between the terrorist murders of Hamas and the actions of Israel.”)
58 percent said “the Hamas killing of 1200 Israeli civilians and the kidnapping of another 250 civilians can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians.” (The alternative answer was that the killings by Hamas were “not justified in any way.”)
45 percent said they sided more with Hamas than with Israel.
These are eye-popping numbers, but there are reasons to be skeptical. The Harvard/Harris poll is somewhat sloppy, its November tables still haven’t been released, and the pollster hasn’t responded to requests for the data. Also, in the same survey in which 58 percent of under-25s said the October 7 attack could be justified, 54 percent said “universities have a moral obligation to condemn the Hamas terrorist killings.” So it’s not clear what some of these respondents are thinking.
Other polls have reported much lower numbers in this age range. In a Generation Lab survey taken a week after October 7, two-thirds of college students called the attack terrorism; only 12 percent described it instead as a justified act of resistance. Another poll, taken in late October, found that among college students aged 18 to 22, 9 percent said they sympathized “a lot” with Hamas, and another 13 percent said they sympathized “a little.”
All in all, sympathy with Hamas seems to show up, on average, in about 15 percent to 20 percent of young American adults. That’s way too high. But keep three things in perspective. First, the most reliable polls indicate that even in this age group, the vast majority of respondents oppose or at least don’t support Hamas. Second, there’s a huge gap between sympathy with Palestinians, which is quite broadly shared in the younger cohort, and sympathy with Hamas, which isn’t. And third, there’s a big gap between young people’s feelings about the Israeli government and their feelings about the Israeli people.
The WSJ/Ipsos poll illustrates these distinctions. Seventy-nine percent of under-30s expressed an unfavorable view of Hamas. The 13 percent who expressed a favorable view were a small fraction of the 55 percent who expressed a favorable view of “the Palestinian people.” And while only 40 percent of under-30s rated “the Israeli government” favorably, 65 percent rated “the Israeli people” favorably. The subsequent survey of 18-to-22-year-old college students found the same pattern: relatively low sympathy with Hamas, compared to much broader sympathy with Palestinian and Israeli civilians.
TOGETHER, THESE SURVEYS INDICATE that young Americans feel far more drawn to the plight of Palestinians, and by extension to any group that supports them, than to violence or other hostile acts against Israeli civilians. But what do these young people think when the debate moves beyond Israel and Palestine? To put it bluntly: What do they think about Jews?
The post-October 7 polls tell us a few things. First, younger Americans are a lot less worried about antisemitism than older Americans are. In the Pew survey, under-30s, unlike any other age cohort, were more likely to express a great deal of concern about the possibility of “increasing violence against Muslim people in the U.S.” than to express such concern about increasing violence against Jews. Likewise, in a December Economist/YouGov poll, under-30s were more likely to say that hate crimes against Muslims were a serious problem in this country than to say the same about hate crimes against Jews. (This runs contrary to recent data on hate crimes against Jews and Muslims.) When under-30s were asked about “antisemitism” and about discrimination against Muslims, again, they were more likely to describe the latter as a serious problem than to say the same about antisemitism.
You could argue that these polls show heightened concern for Muslims, not indifference toward Jews. But that theory can’t explain other findings in the Economist poll. For example, American adults as a whole disagreed (51 to 16 percent) with the proposition that “Jews have too much power in America.” But under-30s were closely divided: 28 percent strongly agreed or tended to agree with that proposition, while 35 percent strongly disagreed or tended to disagree.
The poll also asked whether “the Holocaust has been exaggerated.” Overall, the respondents overwhelmingly said no: 74 percent disagreed with the statement; only 9 percent agreed. Among the under-30s, 52 percent also disagreed with the statement. But 23 percent of under-30s agreed with it.
The persistence of the age gap on questions that go beyond Israel and Palestine—questions about hate crimes, antisemitic tropes, and the Holocaust—shows that young Americans aren’t just more sensitive than their elders to the plight of Palestinians. They’re also more skeptical of and less sensitive to the plight of Jews. Compared to older generations, younger Americans are less likely to see Jews as victims and more likely to see Jews as bullies.
These views don’t represent a majority of the rising generation. But they’re a sign of danger ahead—not just for Israelis, but for Jews.