One in 10 young people sympathetic to Hamas, Oct 7 anniversary survey reveals

‘Extremism becoming normalised’ fear Jewish groups after ‘alarming’ reponses from Gen Z, with 39pc disbelieving survivors’ horrific stories

Almost one in 10 young people are sympathetic to Hamas, a report has found.
Support for the Palestinian terror group comes despite its barbarous attack on southern Israel a year ago on Oct 7.
This led to the deaths of 1,195 people, including 815 civilians, the single largest number of Jewish casualties since the Holocaust.
But a survey by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) found that more than one in eight (13 per cent) of 18 to 24-year-olds do not believe that reports of the attacks are true.
While more than half of the British public (55 per cent) believe the reports of survivors of the brutal Hamas incursion into Israeli communities a year ago, only 39 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds appear to.
In April, a Harvard CAPS-Harris survey found that 43 per cent of Gen Z Americans aged between 18 and 24 said they supported Hamas, while 57 per cent backed Israel.
A poll in March by the same agency found that 37 per cent of Gen Z respondents said they supported Hamas.
Jewish groups say the findings have thrown a disturbing light on the attitude of younger people towards Israel and its conflict in Gaza, with far greater levels of sympathy for Hamas than had been shown before Oct 7 last year.
They reveal that 16 per cent of young adults believe the Hamas attacks were justified, compared with only 7 per cent of the wider British public.
Further, more than one in eight (13 per cent) believe the British Government is wrong to classify Hamas as a terrorist group, compared with 7 per cent of the British public.
A spokesman for the CAA said: “Extremism is becoming normalised in our country, and as ever Jews are the canaries in the coal mine.
“Most alarming of all, our young people are becoming radicalised at a far greater rate than the rest of the population, sympathising with terrorists and espousing extreme anti-Jewish racism.”
Critics of Israel say the findings simply reflect sympathy for the huge number of Palestinians killed in the conflict, which has left huge swathes of Gaza devastated by Israeli bombing.
The survey, carried out by the CAA, found that after 12 months of conflict as much as one third of the British public believe that Israel treats the Palestinians “like the Nazis” – a contention that is in itself anti-Semitic, according to the international definition of anti-Semitism drawn up by the the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) intergovernmental alliance.
The figure is even higher among 18 to 24-year-olds, nearly half of whom (48 per cent) compare Israeli actions in Gaza – where more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed – to those of the Nazis towards Europe’s Jews.
Among 2024 Labour voters, the figure is 45 per cent, compared with 36 per cent of Lib Dem, 22 per cent of Conservative and 18 per cent of Reform voters.
In a finding that reflects the continued prevalence among a new generation of anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish influence, a third of 18 to 24-year-olds (33 per cent) believe that “Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media” and 16 per cent believe that “compared to other groups, Jewish people have too much power in the media”.
In another finding which is likely to raise fears among Britain’s Jewish population, almost one quarter (23 per cent) of young adults do not believe that Israel has the right to defend itself.
Nearly a fifth (18 per cent) do not believe Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. 
Among the British public, the figure is 8 per cent, though this rises to one in 10 among 2024 Lib Dem supporters.
One in 10 young adults believe that Jewish people talk about the Holocaust “just to further their political agenda”.
In a further finding reflecting growing anti-Semitic views among 18 to 24-year-olds, 9 per cent do not believe Jewish people can be trusted just as much as other British people in business. 
That is almost double the 4 per cent of the general British public with the same view.
The CAA added: “This week marks one year since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, but here in Britain we need to turn our attention to the home front, where British society is changing before our eyes.
“If the authorities continue to let radicalism run rampant on campuses and on social media, it will not be long before we are looking over our shoulders at generation hate.”
The findings come after a former director of the BBC claimed that the corporations’ “institutionally hostile” coverage of Israel has made Britain unsafe for Jews.
In a report, Danny Cohen, the BBC’s director of television from 2013 to 2015, accuses the broadcaster of making “false and damaging claims about Israel’s conduct of this war”.
Endorsing his findings, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust jointly warned that the BBC’s reporting has “led many British Jews to conclude that the BBC has become institutionally hostile to Israel”.
YouGov interviewed 2,615 adults aged 18 and above for the online survey, which was carried out between Aug 2 and 5 this year on a sample representative of all British adults.