Why American Millennials Are Unsympathetic Toward Israel

[eridani]

Actually, Boomers are the same as Millenials with respect to the Holocaust--both generations learned about it in school. I don't see the deniers as having all that much traction ao far. The real difference is that Boomers remember the 1967 war, the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the constant hijacking of planes for ransom by the PLO in the 60s. Quite a fea of us remember air travel as not only more expensive and special, but also the complete absence of the security measures that essentially put an end to hijacking planes for ransom.

That is all meaningliess to Millenials, who only see a society with an army, navy and air force beating the shit out of people who have none of those things. Anyone with skill with social media who wants the world to know about something can make sure it gets known. Lies unravel much more easily. Boomers had to wait for IF Stone to read 20 or 30 national papers a day, puzzle out the contradictions, and mail his offset newsletter.

The bad news here is that 30 years is plenty of time for Israel to take all the remaining land and water and finish destroying Palestinial society.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/why-american-millennials-are-unsympathetic-toward-israel-124749/#!

Millennials, of course, are not ignorant to Israel's pleas—and not all of them are pro-Palestine. But as you look down the age ladder from Silent to Millennials, it's clear that sympathy for Israel is dissipating with time. It's clear that within three decades, Israel supporters in the United States will effectively age-out of the political arena.

Israel has consistently portrayed itself as a victim in campaigns to receive U.S. funding and support. That tactic won't work with American Millennials anymore. The state must be willing to compromise on all fronts—from settlements to a two-state solution—to be able to please the rising generational power that will hold America's purse strings.

And, most importantly, it's time for Israel to abandon its Holocaust narrative. Much like the Bolsheviks or U-Boats, the Holocaust is an important, but now impersonal, historical lesson. They can no longer rely on the misdeeds that others made 80 years ago to justify the misdeeds of their own today. American Millennials simply won't support it.

[sendero]

1. And not surprisingly.

.... plenty of us boomers feel EXACTLY the same way.

[eridani]

2. Yes, because of changes over the years

The PLO recognized Israel. No more PLO-directed terrorist acts all over the world. Continuing massive investment by Israel in settlment land and water theft. In 1967, I was perfectly happy to see Israel kick Arab army butt. The situation these days is 180 degrees from that.

[sendero]

4. Somewhere around the time..

..... they decided to run a bulldozer over a protester, they lost all moral authority. At this point they are no better than Hamas.

[dorkzilla]

9. +1 nt

[Hoppy]

10. Also, Israel's attack on the U.S.S. Liberty

[johnnyreb]

19. I bumped into a guy with a USS Liberty hat last week!

I was at a local hamburger joint in central South Carolina... local grease-pit, not a chain. There by the window was a big strapping older man with his wife. His hat looked like it had a service emblem... as I neared I saw "USS Liberty"! It was a clean crisp hat, blasting USS Liberty in vivid color. I put down my tray and we chatted. He was very grateful for the recognition, that someone knew. Actually I told him, I didn't "know". I knew the controversy, the allegations. But that there are entities on the internet that feebly attempt to sow doubt with admonitions about hearings and commissions and how you have to be a laughingstock to want to know American history. And while they're clearly disrupting, maybe their vast storehouse of arcane knowledge of American history has given them one or two points on this Liberty thing for all I know. But no, this sailor was there, it was deliberate, and is a continuing coverup. The disappointment and anger in his manner was penetrating. Just like the youtubes you can find of his shipmates speaking at their memorials. He recommends the book "Assault on the Liberty" by James Ennes. He also wrote down "Attack on the Liberty," with "John", but he didn't remember that author's name. It was quite an experience speaking with him over dripping cold hamburgers (we talked awhile).

[meti57b]

13. More like she got so close to that bulldozer, that they could not see her.

Check out the size of it along with the small size of the window. She was not in the driver's line of sight.

[sendero]

17. Sure..

..... a bulldozer built so you cannot see what you are bulldozing.

Nobody is buying that idiotic shit, people at the scene described it as a deliberate act and based on Israel's general pattern of actions I believe them. But you go ahead and believe any bullshit you want.

[meti57b]

20. The driver/operator cannot see what is immediately in front of it.......

Obviously, the operator/driver can see what is some distance away from it. She was standing too close to it. In other words, ..... if you cannot see the driver, the driver cannot see you.

[arikara]

32. Of course it becomes "standing too close"

when they keep advancing on her. They lie about everything.

[WatermelonRat]

35. Here is a diagram of a bulldozer's blindspot

[img][/img]
(This is from a completely apolitcal website about heavy machinery safety, btw, so don't try to claim it's Israeli propoganda)
That's an ordinary bulldozer. The bulldozers Israel uses have even poorer visibility as they are fitted with heavy slat armor to protect against snipers. It is entirely plausible that the operator didn't see her.
As for the testimonies of people at the scene, Corrie's fellow activists were hardly neutral observers. They were dedicated activists who travelled across the world and entered a combat zone so that they could protest Israel. That sort of emotional investment has an effect on how people perceive things.

Ultimately, this entire conversation is just a rorschach test where people see what they want to see, and all for something that is quite small in the big picture. The guilt or innocence of one immigrant bulldozer operator has absolutely no relevance to the broader conflict, and it's absurd to say that it costs anyone "moral authority". If you believe your side's talking points, Israel has been gleefully massacreing people for decades, so how does this one incident cost them their moral authority?

[sendero]

36. You know..

... I could cite 50 similar atrocities commited by the Israel defense forces over the last 2 decades, I chose this one at random. I'm sure you would have a nifty excuse for each one.

There is a reason Americans and Europeans are growing weary of Israels' bad behavior, and a reason why younger people with a more objective outlook and less "history" reject Israel.

It sucks when both sides of a conflict are simply reprehensible.

[U4ikLefty]

39. Well, at least the apologists didn't call Rachel Corrie a "stupid bitch" this time

DU rom 2003 (see post #11) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x216793

[mikeysnot]

18. Why do those remind me of this...?

[freshwest]

40. I see a few problems greater than the technical matter.

First:

The Israelis should not have been bulldozing those homes. Period. I remember seeing a lot of that in the news. The people who owned the homes were resisting. It was an act of theft.

Second:

Corrie was killed during an organized protest and not just wandering about. Many people were there and no doubt screaming bloody murder. There was no way the dozer operator could ignore what was going on as they were in his view, even if Corrie wasn't. BTW, I don't go along with the St. Corrie or Corrie the martyr crowd. There are risks to civil disobediance, and death is one of them.

Third:

Consider the First point, it was a wrongful action and unncessary. It does not matter what ideology was added to the act. Then with the Second, which evolved from the First, the incident itself. Dozing those homes was wrong, and running over her exacerbated that and was not acting right.

Thus, I see your POV on this to be faulty, as I've worked in construction around heavy equipment, much larger than you use as an example to prove that it was accidental. No one would get run over that because people would watching and the operator would see them. There were people about when Corrie was killed.

That being said, this may simply be a way to say that the Israelis are not the horrible. almost supernatural evildoers they are made out to be. Which is a reasonable thing to say, but very hard to say right now.

FWIW, I see Israel as a nation that has been at war all its existence. And the Arabs there have not run from war, they just haven't won yet.

And I believe they need to have one state with equality. Call a portion of the land by another name, and these guys will still be fighting each other. I see it as a civil war that has lasted over half a century, with both sides unwilling to get in.

There will never be two separate states. They will fight until one group rules all the land.

Just sayin'

[closeupready]

29. Rachel Corrie, yes. Totally senseless act of murder.

[Scuba]

3. +1

[doxydad]

5. Agreed.

I'm 62 and could care less about a thousand year conflict because of some religious bullshit. Isreal? Who cares? Not me.
Here's an IDEA: Let's start paying for education, food, shelter and domestic programs, that would include paying off the National Nightmare Debt instead of caring about some age-old impossible connection to a foreign Country. We...as a Nation...owes NOTHING to ANYBODY.

[Recursion]

16. It *wasn't* a conflict for thousands of years

Jewish people have always lived in the Levant; that's not the problem. It became a problem when a bunch of Europeans colonized it.

[doxydad]

21. No cares given.

I hate to see any of my tax dollars going overseas anywhere. We have a plethora of our own problems.

[Blue_Adept]

6. Poor missing Gen-X... :D

I wonder how they figure into things? Myself, it's something that was learned in school but also having grown up being born in 1971, all I've seen is the back and forth there over the years. There's a disconnect of sorts because it feels like in the 30 odd years that I've known of and seen reporting and read about the conflict, nothing has changed. Well, we know things have changed, but it's a conflict that has gone on for so long that it's relatively easy to be dismissive of it. A lot of us aren't invested in it in the way the baby boom generation was and those older.

That's not to say we don't care, but I also suspect that we'll fall more towards the millennials view as we're getting most of our news through the same sources these days online and there's a lot more criticism of Israel.

[eridani]

7. Somewhere in between

Lots of individual variation in awareness of public affairs, so some are more like boomers and the rest more like millenials.

[Blue_Adept]

8. Pretty much

I figure it's one of those transitional generations in a way. Those who took online earlier and dealt with a wider range of people through early internet activity are likely more open to viewing things differently. Those who stuck more towards last-gen news sources and local connections hew more towards the boomer thinking.

[JustAnotherGen]

15. Good points . . .

But I think maybe we are too cynical? I was born in 1973 - and if the Boomers Didn't Trust Anyone over a certain age -


I think we have a massive distrust of everyone and everything. I don't think the new 'libertarian' movement could exist with just millenials. I see people in our age group picking that up as well. It starts with a dismissal of institutions.

I also see (and I fall into this section) the prosperity folks in Gen X. Doxydad (upthread) stated he is 62 and he laid out what my chief 'concerns' are. They all lead to prosperity in America.

I'm having a hard time seeing where our involvement in middle eastern conflicts leads to the greater good of America.

[Blue_Adept]

23. Indeed

We grew up initially with the threat of hiding under our desks to avoid nuclear war while at the same time in the early 80's learning that if we were hit, it wouldn't matter. That made some distrust right there. Then we ended up getting more heavily involved in the middle east, because of oil while saying it was about other things, and I've basically spent my life watching so many conflicts there that go back and forth and have centuries upon centuries of issues involved that I can't imagine there being a peaceful end scenario at all, ever.

There's reasons to be involved on a number of levels, but not to the way we go, not to military involvement and there has to be more times where we do wash our hands of it all and to try and ease our own mistakes from causing even more problems.

[JustAnotherGen]

24. Something else

We came of age literally - Watching a war.

It's like - the Gulf War never happened for some folks. There's a great song by Stevie Nicks - you probably know it . . .

And then the wall came down
We thought it was a great beginning
People were free to cross the line
But then something happened in the desert
Something broke the stars into pieces

What the hell happened here? It's one big shock and scare being traded for another.

Here's to all the cynical assholes like me!

[jeff47]

27. The cynicism and distrust comes from powerlessness

Boomers so outnumbered us that our political issues were ignored. For example, high college tuitions aren't a new problem. But there weren't enough of us to make a political issue out of it - we were so outnumbered by boomer and older benefiting from lower taxes that we couldn't get anything to fix that.

So we generally distrust everything political. Which is one thing that has greatly hurt Democrats. The Republican core is younger boomers and older GenX. Democrats have older boomers. And while younger GenX is very liberal, cynicism means we are difficult to get to the polls reliably. While that started with us being ignored, it is now a self-perpetuating problem.

We'll have to see what happens now that Millennials are a political force. They're large enough to get political care, and their liberalism will appeal to GenX's liberals. That could result in a massive political shift in the country, if Democrats are smart enough to grab on to it. If they aren't, then we'll get yet another disaffected generation. It'll come down to whether we've got Democrats like Elizabeth Warren, or Democrats like Rham Emanuel.

[JustAnotherGen]

28. Excellent point on the tuitions

You know - I graduated JUST when they started giving the tax break.

The smartest thing I did was take a year off between my junior and senior years.

That way I graduated in 1996 - and was able to find a job.

Joblessness and living at home with our parents - lather, rinse, repeat.



The millenials strength IS indeed their numbers.

[eridani]

37. Boomers and Millenials are big demographic lumps

The silent generation and X-ers are significantly smaller in population.

[Hoppy]

11. The theme of this thread, that support for Israel may age out, dismisses the $$$ influence of

A.I.P.A.C.

Money does all the talking in Congress. Our opinion means nothing.

[Cosmocat]

12. YEP

85% of this country wanted reasonable fire arms regulations after Sandy Hook ...

But, we do what we do.

Keep electing OUR POS congressman/senator while screaming bloody murder about how horrible DC is.

[Dustlawyer]

14. Campaign contributions (bribes) = corporate Representatives!

[Cosmocat]

26. yep

nm

[KittyWampus]

22. The Map that changed several of my friends' minds about Israel being the innocent victim:

YEAH YEAH, I am posting a map- but it did change several of my liberal friends' minds about Israel…

[Mosby]

25. propaganda changed your friends minds

Propaganda is a very effective tool used on millenials. That and libertarian/isolationist bullshit.

[riverwalker]

30. it's simple

they see Israel, with it's nuclear arsenal, submarines, F-16's, Hellfire Missiles, Bunker Busting Bombs, unleashing hell on a trapped enclosed people whose majority population under age 15.
and they see this:

http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/special-topics/gaza-under-attack-in-photos-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%88%D8%B1/

[FiveGoodMen]

31. I've lost all sympathy for Israel. Does that make me a millenial?

I'm 54. My opinions have changed. They changed because of Israel's actions.

Don't think it's about age or even background.

[hedgehog]

33. I was going to post on this very subject myself -

I was discussing Israel last night with my millennial daughter and realized for the first time that she had a very different view of things.

For my generation, you should toss in the Diary of Ann Frank and Exodus as well. It was in our generation also, that many of the details of the Holocaust came to light in an organized narrative.

My parents grew up during WWII and did not view the Holocaust as a significantly different event from other horrific crimes. I think they were putting it into the context of the Bataan Death March, the Japanese POW camps, Hiroshima, Dresden, the Blitz, etc.

My mother also compared it to the Great Hunger. There is serious debate today whether that event constituted a genocide or not. Certainly, the Irish would not have starved if the English officials had viewed them as fully human as themselves. (I would disagree with her on one point; I think Oliver Cromwell's Clearance of Ireland takes the prize for the first modern example of deliberate ethnic cleansing/genocide.) The point being, for her, the Holocast was not an exceptional event.

During the Millennials' lifetime, it has become common knowledge that Gypsies, Gays, Communists and Slavs also ended up in the death camp. The Millennials also grew up in the shadow of Cambodia, the recent Balkan War and Rwanda. Unfortunately, for them, genocide is not very exceptional.

[jwirr]

34. The difference between myself at age 73 and milllennials and boomers on this issue is that when I

get mad at them and want to stop them I have a layer of quilt for the past that I have to get past.

[TrollBuster9090]

38. I've got a simpler explanation:

Millennials are simply less likely to see brown people (ie-arabs) as bad guy, and whit people (ie-majority of Israelis) as good guys; and thus automatically take the side of Israel over the palestinians.

Religion, the holocaust, and the terrorist activities of the PLO have nothing to do with it; because half of the older generation who automatically take Israel's side in this conflict have little knowledge of those things either.