Introduction

The last year has seen a flourishing of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests on college and university campuses. Protesters have set up encampments, occupied buildings, spewed antisemitic rhetoric, and physically barred pro-Israel Jews from campus public spaces. Notably, almost all of this activity is associated with what are seen as “progressive” or leftist students, and in this they constitute the culmination of decades of shifting views about Israel on the American left. As was evident during the 2024 Presidential election, the Israel-Hamas War is a mobilizing and organizing force for those on the Left. College campuses have been a hotbed for anti-Israel sentiment. Using survey data, we set out to find if that anti-Israel sentiment is evident within the Jewish community itself.

The Left, the Right, and Israel

At one time, certainly in the 1950s and 1960s, America’s liberal left was decidedly more pro-Israel than the conservative right. The left regarded Israel sympathetically as an embattled but ultimately triumphant liberal democracy. It was a country where democratic socialists were politically dominant and kibbutzim culturally prominent. While Americans on the left – Democrats, labor unions, blacks, academics and intellectuals, Hollywood, and others in the liberal camp – seemed enamored of Israel, the same could not be said for the other side of the political spectrum. Republicans, conservatives, big business, and foreign policy elites all had their reasons for distancing themselves emotionally and politically from Israel, if not, at times, harboring downright antipathy. (Evangelical and other Christians, though, were supportive of Israel.) Or so matters stood, more or less, for much of the mid-twentieth century and a bit beyond. 

Over the decades, support for Israel shifted in several ways. Israel grew stronger economically and militarily and became a center of innovation and technological prowess. Memory of the Holocaust receded in time and in moral sway. Israel’s political leadership shifted toward the more traditionally religious and political right. The famed folk singer Pete Seeger offers an apt illustration of larger processes. In 1950, Pete Seeger and the Weavers’ recording of Tzena, Tzena, Tzena, celebrating the new state of Israel, reached #2 on the Billboard charts. But, towards the end of his life, Seeger became a BDS supporter, as have other leading cultural figures associated with the left.

Meanwhile, America’s political landscape was re-shaped by processes that resulted in sharply divided political camps with multiple differences across many issues. These days, few people cross over to the other camp, compromise is less likely among policymakers, and political choices have become more extreme. More people are now uniformly conservative or liberal on many issues, as the partisan divide is more pronounced now than 10, 20, or 30 years ago. And affective polarization has led to deep distrust and disdain for those who hold opposing ideological or political views.

The extremes on the left and right have become more powerful, better organized, and deeply homogenous, while the traditionally moderating center has declined in influence. Partisan, cultural, and ideological loyalties have become more potent for large numbers in the electorate, leading to the current culture wars. Looking at members of Congress potently illustrates this point; there is almost no overlap ideologically among Democrats and Republicans over the past two decades, and minimal aisle crossing. This was not the case a generation ago, when pragmatism was accepted and embraced.

Today’s far left – those who often identify as “very liberal” rather than the more moderate “liberal” on social surveys – has developed a distinctive political and cultural ideology. Termed progressive by some and “woke” by its critics, the far left’s ideology maintains, at its core, the notion that the world is divided into two camps: the oppressed and the oppressors. As this applies to the current conflict in Israel, the Palestinians have been grouped with the favored oppressed camp, while Israel – and its Jewish supporters around the world – has been relegated to the maligned less favored (if not despicable) oppressor camp, the camp responsible for most of the ills of the world.

In line with these and other developments, the American right and left have flipped their stances on Israel. These days, social surveys show that Republicans and conservatives are more sympathetic to Israel than are Democrats and liberals. The reverse is the case with respect to the Palestinians. Distancing from Israel is most pronounced among younger adult Democrats and liberals.

If anything, events since the brutal attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, have sharpened these differences. And, of course, the issue has become more prominent and more visible to American Jews. The rise of anti-Israel sentiment, with its frequent antisemitic overtones, has caused heightened awareness, vigilance, and discomfort among American Jews generally. But, the impact is especially poignant and complex for those who are in elite academic spaces where the most left-identifying political actors are dominant.

Jewish students’ diverging perspectives

Left-leaning young Jews on today’s campuses are confronted with significant cross-pressures. As Jews, many of their older family and Jewish friends espouse support of Israel. But as young adult students socially dwelling in leftwing environments, they are often surrounded by friends, associates, faculty, and administrators who hold some of the most Israel-critical/pro-Palestinian views of any American population group.

To examine these issues, we turn to survey data collected by Prof. Eitan Hersh of Tufts University. The survey includes students over the course of three years. While the data is not statistically representative of the country as a whole, Hersh surveyed both Jewish and non-Jewish students in 2022, 2023, and 2024 at American campuses with sizeable Jewish populations, allowing us to draw conclusions about campus culture in the wake of October 7th.

Hersh found notable differences between those on the right and left on selected Israel-related measures, both among non-Jewish and Jewish students. We ask if the relationships between views on Israel and political identities cover a wide range of Israel-related attitudes, or are they limited to just a few. We also focus on the most left-wing Jews, exploring whether they are much more alienated from Israel than their more moderate left-wing peers – those who identify as “very liberal” rather than simply “liberal.”

Findings

To address these questions, we compared Jewish undergraduates across the political spectrum: conservatives (including “very conservative,” a very small number), moderates, liberals, and the very liberal – all by their own self-declaration. The conservative group constitutes about 12% of this sample, as compared with 18% for the Very-Liberals.

Source: Eitan Hersh, A Year Of Campus Conflict And Growth: An Over-Time Study Of The Impact Of The Israel-Hamas War On U.S. College Students, 2024

On five survey questions about Israel-related views, anywhere from 18% to 29% of Jewish undergraduates provide “anti-Israel” responses. All five anti-Israel measures rise monotonically as we move from political right to political left, such that conservative Jewish students are the least anti-Israel, while the “very liberal” (most left wing) are the most anti-Israel – by far. Between these two endpoints on the political spectrum, we find the moderates a bit more anti-Israel than conservatives, with liberals surpassing moderates in holding anti-Israel views. Quite notably, the very-liberal respondents score far higher on the anti-Israel items than the “mere” liberals, with gaps exceeding those of any transition between political identity categories.

Comparing conservatives with “very liberals,” we find that just 7% of conservatives feel not at all connected to Israel as opposed to fully 44% of the very-liberal Jewish undergraduates. Just 8% of conservatives “don’t think there should continue to be a Jewish state in Israel/Palestine” compared to 34% of very-liberals. When asked whether news coverage favors Israel, the gap is 13% vs. 58%. Similarly, when asked, “In the current conflict, are your sympathies more with the Israeli people or more with the Palestinian people?” just 7% of conservatives answer, “Palestinians,” compared to nine times as many (64%) of very-liberals. Just four percent of conservatives think that Israel is more to blame than the Palestinians “for the current war in Israel and Gaza.” But half of very-liberal Jews (49 percent) have that view – and this on a survey conducted just a few months after the Hamas massacre and hostage-taking on October 7, 2023.

We decided to call those with at least three anti-Israel responses to the five questions as “highly anti-Israel.” Among conservatives, just 5% qualify as highly anti-Israel, as against 8% of the moderates, 19% of liberals and 51% of the far-left “very liberal” Jewish undergraduates.

The survey also asked about whether they had participated in pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian events in the last 12 months. Half the conservatives participated in pro-Israel events, while only ten percent joined pro-Palestinian protests. Conversely, 41 percent of very-liberal students attended anti-Israel demonstrations and only 17 percent gathered in support of Israel. Consistent with the results for Israel attitudes, pro-Israel event participation declines as we move from right to left, with the biggest drop occurring in the transition from liberals to very-liberals. Similarly, pro-Palestinian event participation climbs as we move from right to left, with the biggest leap in the move from liberals to very-liberals.

Question wording: To what extent do you feel a connection to Israel? / Personally, I don’t think there should continue to be a Jewish state in Israel/Palestine / In general, is US news coverage of the war in Israel and Gaza skewed in favor of the Israelis, skewed in favor of the Palestinians, or impartial? / In the current conflict, are your sympathies more with the Israeli people or more with the Palestinian people? /In your opinion, who is more to blame for the current war in Israel and Gaza?

Source: Eitan Hersh, A Year Of Campus Conflict And Growth: An Over-Time Study Of The Impact Of The Israel-Hamas War On U.S. College Students, 2024

What helps explain the left-right differences overall and the distinctive views and actions of the “very-liberals?” Perhaps the education experience of the students on the left is less religiously-rooted in childhood and teen years, contributing to their alienation from Israel – and other things Jewish. Indeed, those on the right report more Jewish educational experiences than those on the left. The largest gaps between conservatives and very-liberals are associated with attending day schools (35% vs. 14%) and visiting Israel (55% vs. 22%).

Source: Eitan Hersh, A Year Of Campus Conflict And Growth: An Over-Time Study Of The Impact Of The Israel-Hamas War On U.S. College Students, 2024

To see whether the right-left Jewish education gap helps explain the Israel attachment gap, we undertook a multivariate, regression analysis. We statistically controlled for Jewish educational experiences, measuring gaps in Israel views as if all political identity groups had the same levels of Jewish education. Surprisingly and notably, it turns out that this statistical exercise hardly reduces the differences in Israel views between conservatives and very-liberals.

Jewish education does matter, but hardly enough to fully explain the large gaps between political poles in Israel attitudes. Statistically, Jewish educational experiences are less powerful than political identities in predicting views towards Israel, and thus, efforts to increase education about Israel are likely to be only moderately effective.

In contrast, offering narratives and advancing positions about Israel and the war with Hamas that are not fully and narrowly one-sided may help. Since October 7, many students on left-leaning campuses have had to choose between two polarized choices in the oppressor-oppressed paradigm.

One view sees Israel as an oppressive colonizer committing genocide against the indigenous Palestinians, and as such, Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state. For their ideological opposites, Israel is a peace-seeking democracy in the Jewish Homeland, with the most moral army in the world, confronting a terrorist populace committed to the destruction of the Jewish People and erecting a Palestinian State from the river to the sea.

Conceivably, the availability of other narratives could help break this gridlock, advancing the idea that students can be both passionately pro-Israel and highly critical of the current government, as is the case with hundreds of thousands of Israelis, Zionist citizens who care deeply about their country. Pro-Israel students must be able to protest-march against the rule of anti-democratic, ultra-nationalist Israeli leadership—but to do so as pro-Israel Jews, if not as Zionists. They should have the option of deeply opposing the Israeli government and fervently supporting the Jewish State, and this position should be socially acceptable on campus.

All this said, the most important lesson to be drawn from this research is that we should not regard “the left” as a monolithic camp. Just as the American left is itself divided between moderate-liberals and far-left progressives on numerous issues, so too are Jewish students similarly divided with respect to Israel.

The results not only testify to the overall relationship between political identity and Israel-related sentiments among Jewish students – as was reported for non-Jewish students by Hersh (2024). But we also see that the gaps between liberals and very liberals (the former more moderate, the latter further left) are enormous. In fact, they vastly exceed the gaps between conservatives and liberals. For example, just 8% of conservatives think that Israel should not be a Jewish state, as compared with 13% of moderates and 19% of liberals. And what about the very-liberals? They hit 34%. Consistently, on all the measures related to Israel, the far left – those who chose, “very liberal,” the left-most possibility on the political viewpoints question – register a quantum leap in anti-Israel sentiment over mere “liberals.”

Conclusion

American politics is deeply polarized. But our division is not one of two monolithic extremes without any alternatives. As the Pew Research Center notes, “…the gulf that separates Republicans and Democrats sometimes obscures the divisions and diversity of views that exist within both partisan coalitions – and the fact that many Americans do not fit easily into either one.” When it comes to Israel, the progressive left – be they Americans in general or Jewish undergraduates – must be understood as vastly different than others who are left of center.

The far-left (or “very-liberals”) do indeed widely hold anti-Israel feelings and engage in political activity that is far more extreme than do others on the liberal and leaning left. Pro-Israel Jewish communal leaders, educators, parents, faculty, and students need to learn to distinguish between the far left and moderate left, as the two camps present very different challenges and opportunities and, hence, demand different approaches. It is wise to remember that in our world of social media and reactionary politics, those groups which are coordinated and well organized, vocal, and strategic can seemingly influence politics and policy by creating the illusion that their views are far more dominant and supported than they really are; those on the extreme left are very different from the more traditional left and there is far more widespread unity of opinion and support for Israel than it may appear at first glance.

Accordingly, the sharp distinctions between moderate-left and far-left Jewish students have serious implications for both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian advocates and observers. First, “the left” is not uniformly or even mostly anti-Israel.  Such a description ought to be reserved for the “far-left” as represented by those identifying as “very liberal.” Second, that said, the proportion who are very liberal rather than simply liberal is growing with succeeding birth cohorts. If things continue as they have been (and, of course, the past is not always an accurate predictor of the future), the up-and-coming generations of Jewish (and other) young people on college campus will lean further and further to the far-left, and, correlatively, adopt more attitudes unfavorable toward Israel.

For the conventional pro-Israel Jewish organizations, the message might be the same as the classic Jewish telegram: “Start Worrying. Details to Follow.”

Co-authored with Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist of contemporary Jewry and former Professor at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at The Hebrew University.