Why So Many Young People Hate Israel, and How To Fix This Situation

By Raanan Geberer

In a recent, excellent article in Dissent, Mitchell Cohen distinguishes that “the Left that Learns” from the past and “the Left that doesn’t learn.” Specifically, he’s talking about Israel, and distinguishes between those who are critical of Israel but seek to be fair and those for whom anti-Zionist rhetoric strays uncomfortably close to anti-Semitism. Before we go any further, I will say that I, as a member of J Street and a longtime reader of Tikkun, consider myself a member of the former camp.

Cohen says those who “don’t learn” – from historical incidents such as the Russian “Doctors’ Plot,” where anti-Zionism was used as a stand-in for anti-Semitism – subscribe to certain beliefs, attitude and behaviors, such as:
1) Zionism is an alien implant into the Middle East, created by imperialism. The age-old Jewish religious attachment to the Land of Israel is either ignored or ridiculed.
2) The very existence of Israel is un-democratic and discriminatory.
3) Israel’s misdeeds should be criticized ad infinitum, but other injustices, such as Darfur, can be summed up in one perfunctory sentences.
4) Any problem between the Arabs and Israel can be blamed on Israel exclusively. Even the existence of Hamas can be blamed on Israel.
As good as the article is, however, there are several points I believe it overlooks. For example, let’s take a look at some of the most prominent groups that I would consider hardline anti-Israel: the International Solidarity Movement, Jews Against the Occupation and International ANSWER. A great part of the membership of these organizations, if not the majority, consists of college students and other “twenty-somethings” and “thirty-somethings.”
And when these young people read about Israel on web sites or in newspapers, or see newscasts from Israel on TV, what do they see?
I’ll tell you what they DON’T see. They don’t see hordes of refugees trying to escape the British blockade because they have such a strong desire to live in a land of their own. They don’t see immigrants from almost every nation in Europe and Asia streaming into Haifa harbor and Israeli officials trying heroically to unite these diverse people into one nation. They don’t see muscular, suntanned kibbutzniks redeeming swamps and growing crops in places where nothing has grown for thousands of years.
They don’t see upbeat young people hitchhiking all over the country. They don’t see an army so egalitarian that the private sits down at lunch with the general. They don’t see plucky scientists thinking up plans to irrigate the desert and create homes for thousands of more people. And they don’t see novelists, poets and playwrights creating a new literature in a language that had been proclaimed dead for thousands of years.
No, those are the images of Israel that our parents, our grandparents knew. They were already dated when I came of age in the ‘70s, and they are totally remote to these young people now.
When these young people turn on the TV or the computer and see images of Israel, they see images of arrogant soldiers harassing civilians at checkpoints, bombing and strafing entire communities, demolishing houses, blockading cities into poverty, breaking up peaceful demonstrations, and firing tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds. They see Palestinian prisoners have been in prison for months without having been charged. And these are the ONLY images they see.
While it’s true that these young people lack a historical perspective, fewer and fewer young people in general have such a perspective. The numbers of history or political science majors is way, way down from what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Survey after survey, news article after news article, show that an alarming percentage of young Americans lack a basic knowledge of American history. And if this is how they react to American history, the chances are that they know even less about Middle Eastern history. No, all they have to go by are those images they see on TV or on the web.
If Israel negotiates honestly with the Palestinians as an equal rather than from a position of arrogance, puts through a meaningful settlement freeze and stands up to the right-wing settlers, if its soldiers are taught to be courteous when dealing with Palestinian civilians, if Israel stops violating international law when dealing with the Palestinians in the territories, if Israel minimizes the number of checkpoints and lifts the Gaza blockade, if Israel accepts the international consensus of a “two-state solution” using land for peace, then the “hate-Israel” chorus coming from college campuses will be diminished to one or two notes.
This, I guarantee you. There will always be some people who insist that Israel has no right to exist, but if Israel learns to respect human rights and the international consensus, those people will be as irrelevant as the Flat Earth Society.