It’s that time of the year. The back-to-school season is upon us, and with it, many college students have already begun protesting for the “pro-Palestine” cause. What America has seen of these protests has been alarming. But like most media coverage, the focus has been on chaos and little else. Due to this, many have come to assume generalized assumptions about what university students believe. However, a recent survey offers a more complete understanding of the actual dynamics on campus, and according to an article from the Times of Israel, most students (thankfully) don’t identify with these radical ideals. However, a concerning number of young people still do.

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Around one-third of non-Jewish college students embraced patterns of ideas hostile to Jews or Israel during the 2023-24 academic year, according to a new study by Brandeis University researchers.

The study, published Thursday by the university’s Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, helps paint a clearer picture of the attitudes undergirding the widespread tensions over Israel and Gaza that spread across campuses last year, leading to disruptive protests and university crackdowns.

It found that about 15 percent of students surveyed were hostile to Israel, with many believing, for example, that Israel has no right to exist. It also found that nearly a quarter of non-Jewish students overall said they did not want to be friends with people who support Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, a stance the survey said had the effect of “ostracizing nearly all of their Jewish peers.”

The survey found that 16% of non-Jewish students were hostile to Jews but not to Israel, believing in enduring anti-Semitic ideas such as that Jews have too much power in America. Two percent of respondents were hostile to both Jews and Israel, and exhibited the highest rate of anti-Semitic attitudes.

Most non-Jewish students, 66%, were not hostile to Jews or Israel, the survey said (Read more here).

This study gives a nuanced profile of the student protests that have been loudly presented in recent months across college campuses. The goal for the survey’s organizers was to present a picture different from the images that have been blasted across mainstream media. Len Saxe, one of the survey’s co-authors, is against the idea of student bodies being treated like a homogenous monolith of anti-Semitism.

“We can’t treat everybody, we can’t treat all students, as if they have these prejudices toward Jews and Israel,” Saxe said. “I think it gives us a full perspective on the problem and helps us target the solutions.”

He’s correct in this assertion. As stated above, most Non-Jewish students (66%) are not hostile to Israel. All the noise we are seeing and hearing across the nation comes from a very loud and disruptive minority of students who want to see the dissolution of Israel.  Interestingly, this survey also shows that many non-Jewish students are confused about what they even believe.

Among the students described as not hostile to Jews or Israel, 25% still believed that Israel’s supporters control the media, while more than one in 10 had favorable views of Hamas. The rest of their beliefs, however, were inconsistent with antisemitic or anti-Israel thinking, Saxe said.

Some young people have latched onto anti-Semitic rhetoric without even understanding their views. If they were exposed to the truth, rather than propaganda, many of these students would likely realize how flawed these ideologies really are. Overall, this survey is evidence that all is not lost in America’s universities. It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that the vast majority of college students today are anti-Israel. As stated before, the voices of anti-Semitism that permeate the mainstream are really the voices of a very clamorous and insistent minority.  They do not represent the ideals of their entire generation or even their fellow classmates. They only represent the ideals of Hamas.

What did you think of this survey? Share your own thoughts and prayers in the comments below.

T.K. Robinson is a student and part-time (amateur) philosopher. In his downtime, he enjoys reading, music, and chronic daydreaming. His Scripture-oriented commentary usually involves the younger generation (especially Gen Z). He wants to shed light on important current events regarding his peers and share insights from a Biblical perspective. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons.