The outrage of young Americans over the war between Israel and Hamas has dominated the political debate for weeks. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have made pilgrimages to Columbia University and other campuses to offer support or denounce protests in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, and President Joe Biden addressed the upheaval in remarks Thursday.
But those headlines don’t reflect the top concerns of young voters this election year, according to recent polls. Surveys in recent months show that young voters are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians involved in the conflict, but few of them place the war between Israel and Hamas among their top issues in the 2024 elections. other voters, young people often place economic concerns at the top of their list.
And even though young voters are cooler toward Biden than they were at the same point in 2020, there is little evidence that U.S. support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza is a critical factor in their relative discontent.
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“When you have two presidents who have the same position on an issue, that automatically puts that issue – I hate to say lower on the list, because it’s obviously an important issue, but that doesn’t make it an issue where I am. I will choose Donald Trump against Joe Biden,” said Devon Schwartz, a student at the University of Texas at Austin.
Schwartz, 19, a student of Muslim and Jewish descent and active in a campus group promoting interfaith dialogue, calls the protests at his university, which led to a police crackdown, “a historic moment.” And he said he would have liked to have had the opportunity to vote for a candidate “more progressive on Israel” than Biden in November. But he still plans to vote for him.
“I want to see policy changes from Joe Biden,” he said. “I don’t want to vote for Donald Trump and then see the exact same policies.”
American sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shifted slightly toward the Palestinians over the past decade. Although 51% of Americans remain more sympathetic toward Israelis, 27% now sympathize more with the Palestinian people, up from 12% in 2013, according to Gallup.
The change is essentially generational and most likely reflects not only changes in the conflict itself and a rightward shift in Israeli politics, but also a decade in which pro-Palestinian activists worked to connect the cause to the movements. National issues in the United States, such as Black Lives Matter and Israel divestment campaigns have gained traction on college campuses.
The latest Pew Research Center poll finds that 18- to 29-year-olds are three times more likely to sympathize with Palestinians in the conflict than those over 65, and twice as likely as adults overall.
“Not everyone is necessarily as excited as the protesters,” said Laura Silver, associate director of global research for Pew. “But 18-29 year olds…
