As the old Broadway song goes, “𝓀What’s the matter with kids today? Why can’t they be like we were, perfec🐈t in every way?”
Of course, kids were never perfect🍰 and have often been rebellious, but young people have also never beeജn this far removed from reality — affected by social media and political currents that have sold them pure propaganda.
The campus rot is exemplified by the congressional performance of Harvard President Claudine Gay.
After leading a culture that put Harvard dead last on the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s campus free-speech rankings, she suddenly champions free speech — if it’s antisemitic hate speech.
The truth is that false narratives have been aꦫllowed to fester and sink into large numbers of Generation Z students.
While Americans aged 65 and up support Israel over Hamas by 95% to 5%, those aged 18 to 24 support Israel by the thinnest of💫 margins, 55% to 45% in the 🌱latest Harvard CAPS-Harris poll.
What could possiblyᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ be driving this high level of support for Hamas?
At the core, our high schools and universities have failed to teach our yo▨ung people even the most basic facts, leading them to support a movement they would never back if they were grounded in reality.
Gen Z has a f♔undamentally misguided picture of what Hamas and Israel are and how they treat different peoples.
Contrary to the facts, 44% of 18- to 24-year-olds believe Israel is not a democracy, and 41% 𝓡say Israel does not allow Arabs to vote in🍬 elections.
When asked about Hamas, 41% of this age group think Hamas rules democratically and is n🅰ot authoritarian.
It’s no wonꦰder about 45% of young people support Hamas — they think Israel is the dictatorship and Hamas the democracy.
The picture is 🌞similarly upside down when it comes to issues of tolerance.
Only 53% of 18- to 24-year-olds think Israel respects the rights of religiou🌊s and ethnic minorities.🎃
Only 51% think Israel allows gay peopl♌e to live openly.
Even more shocking, 45% of this age group 👍think Hamas ꦍallows gay people to live together openly, and 51% believe Hamas respects the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.
This is farcical when Hamas’ charter expli🐎citly advocates the eradication of Jews and Hamas has executed suspected homosexuals.
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Just about the only horror Gen Z acknowledges is that Hamas uses Gazan civilians aꦜs human shields.𒅌
Yet still only 68% of 18- tඣo 24-year-olds recognize that, compared with 95% of seniors.
And no, Jews are not colonizers, and Israel is not an apartheid country — it is the Jewish homeland dati🤡ng back thousands of years, and Jews are a multiracial group themselves.
These are antisemitic tropes that have been 🍰allowed to grow to the extent t🍸hat even horrific rapes and murders are not condemned.
Where are young🧔 people getting this misinfor💙mation?
Seventy percent of 18- to 24-year-olds cla🅘im to be paying very close or somewhat close atte𝓡ntion to the war.
♓But clearly, they’re spending too much time in the wrong TikTok and campus bubbles: 64% of them didn’t even know about the partial four-hour daily cease-fires Israel implemented Nov. 9 — the highest level of igno🎶rance of any age group.
Young peoplܫe are far removed from the hor🅰rors of the Holocaust and even 9/11.
They don’t understand Israel’s history and its creation by a United Nations vote of two-thirds of members nearly 75 years ago, and so thꦉey parrot empty catchphrases about decolonization.
They’re even bringing back Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” because they see the💟 “letter” essentially calls for jihad against anyone outside radical Islam, whether Jewish, American or even Arab.
The scariest thing of all is you don’t even have to read between the lines of Hamas’ charter to grasp its antisemitism and evil, yet ✨nearly half oꦑf Gen Z still excuses and supports the terrorist group.
These young Americans would have an extremely rude awakening if they traveled to Gaza and saw the horrors Hamꦉas perpཧetrates against its own people.
The good news is in the bad news: It’s not that our young people have become terrorists; it’s that they’ve become con🎃fused o𓆏n who the real terrorists are.
The right teachers an🐲d sources of information would fix this problem, and this starts with a true reformation of our high-school and university leadership.
But as the song illustrates, even if students are misguid♔ed today, they generally become more grounded in truth as they mature and go from the ivory tower to the real world.
For Gen Z that cannot happen fast enough.
Mark Penn was a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1995-2008. He is chairman of the Harris Poll and CEO of Stagwell. Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.