The youth: Dumb or just misinformed?

At first glance at these polling numbers, my knee-jerk response is that it proves the younger you are, the dumber you are.

That may come from me being in the 65+ group, so let me take a step back and be kind.

Instead of dumb, let’s say the younger you are, the less experience you have — with life, with politics, with reality.

The 65+ people lived through the 1967 Six Day war and the 1972 Yom Kippur war in which Israel fought for its right to exist, as it did in 1948 when it declared independence and was immediately attacked by five Arab nations vowing to drive the Jews into the sea. It was stated explicitly: “The Jews Into the sea.”

The 65+ people lived through the protests against the Vietnam war that racked America, masses fighting for “peace.”

The older people in the 65+ cohort lived through, or took part in, the civil rights revolution to extinguish racism.

These were real protest movements of real injustices. 

What does Gen Z have to protest? The environment? Yes, sure, but it lacks the cachet of, say, George Floyd, which turned millions of Americans into the streets.

And good for them.

But how many issues have that kind of emotional impact?

It is a given that “the youth” are idealistic and want to protect the underdog.

And here is where ignorance comes into play:

They have bought into the idea that Israel is the bully simply because it successfully has protected its right to exist. 

In a stunning demonstration of moral blindness, seen on college campuses, many students were celebrating the monstrous, deliberate, planned slaughter of unarmed men, women, children, and elders, plus the rape, brutalization, and kidnapping of others.

In their blissful immaturity they were able to concoct some kind of a weird moral equivalency between acts of war and indiscriminate acts of slaughter.

Imagine the ignorance of the Harvard students who had to recant their support for Hamas because they claim they didn’t bother to read the statements of support they signed. Why? Because shouting “oppression” always sounds good.

They chant slogans with no idea what they mean.

Or do they? How radicalized are they?

When they chant, “Free Palestine, from the river to the sea,” do they understand that means the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea? It reflects the Hamas charter that explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel, a democracy. 

Do they understand they are calling for the destruction of a liberal democracy in which freedom of religion, speech, and movement is guaranteed for its Arab citizens, a country in which LGBT people are cherished and protected?

Do they understand when they scream “By any means necessary” they are explicitly endorsing the atrocities of Oct. 7? “Any” excludes nothing.

Do they understand when they parrot the far Left talking point of “colonizers,” that it is a lie, so easily disproved it’s almost laughable. 

The Jews are the indigenous people. The proof?

Jesus was Jewish. Where did he live? In occupied (by the Romans) Israel. The only people possibly displaced by Jews were the long-gone Canaanites.

Apartheid? Another lie. 20% of the population of Israel are Arabs, and are the most free Arabs in the Middle East. They can vote, they can go to any school, any hospital, live where they want, and be elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Does this sound like the “apartheid” in, say, the former South Africa?

The Arabs in Gaza and in the West Bank are not Israeli citizens and don’t have the rights of Arab citizens.In the same way Mexicans don’t have rights in the U.S. They are “apart” from Israel in the way Mexicans are “apart” from the U.S.

Occupation? Israel had taken Gaza from Egypt in the Six Day war, then left in 2005, giving the Gazans their own land to govern. They chose Hamas in 2006 with 44% of the vote, and there has not been an election since. Instead of nation-building, Hamas chose unrelenting attacks on Israel.

The West Bank was liberated from Jordan, also in the Six Day war. Jordan had been the “occupier” since 1948, but no one complained about that.

So that is how Israel came to be the “next” occupier of the West Bank, after Jordan, and Great Britain.

After a peace is signed, Israel will leave the West Bank, as it had left Gaza.

Blockade? Israel has blockaded Gaza since Hamas started attacking Israel. It is a defensive measure. Egypt also blockades Gaza, for the same reason — self defense. When was the last time you saw a poster accusing Egypt of blockading Gaza? 

You have not because the outrage is directed only against Jews.

So, the youth, which is so famously protective of so many minorities — Blacks, browns, gays, fat, trans — are curiously blind to only one minority: Jews.

What do you say to that, Gen Z?

Are you that radicalized, or that dumb?