Here’s Why Sympathy For Terrorists Is Growing Among America’s Youth

Anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment is more popular among Gen Zers than any other belief, with the possible exceptions of unrestricted abortion and socialism.

A new Caps/Harvard poll shows the cold reality of what Gen Zers believe. Fifty-nine percent admit that Hamas is a terrorist group of brutal killers who indiscriminately shot, raped, and beheaded innocents. Yet fifty-one percent also say that the brutal killing of innocent Israelis was justified because of Palestinian grievances.

So, hats off to the American education system: you’ve raised a generation of terrorist sympathizers who hate Jews. (RELATED:

How did this happen? From infancy, young Americans have imbibed a steady diet of postmodern cynicism, anti-American propaganda and racialist resentment. Why are we surprised when they fall for anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, whether of the Marxist, Nazi, or Jihadist varieties?

Worldviews matter. Most in Gen Z reject absolute truth and think that capitalism and American values are evil. They’re primed to accept without question the propaganda of those who hate Judeo-Christian civilization, including terrorist groups such as Hamas. As Voltaire said in a very different context, “Surely whoever can get them to believe absurdities can get them to commit atrocities.”

We saw the same thing happen a hundred years ago in Germany. Failing to win majority support among the German populace in the 1930’s, Hitler bolstered his power by radicalizing the youth. In just the first year of Nazi dominance, the Hitler Youth grew to roughly 20% of young Germans.

Twenty percent of youth is a tiny percentage of the population. But history shows that it doesn’t take a majority to destroy a nation. It requires only the activation of an outraged minority and the acquiescence of the rest.

If anti-Jewish bigots showed up in Hitler Youth uniforms, Americans would be horrified. But it is uniformity of belief, not clothing, that should worry us the most. As G.K. Chesterton pointed out, when people stop believing in God it isn’t that they believe nothing, but that they will believe anything.

Today’s anti-Jewish bigotry at its root is a spiritual battle. Those wishing to attack society’s stability know that they must first attack God. Attacking God means attacking the Judeo-Christian worldview that says that humans have value because of God. Jews are an ever-present reminder that there is a God and that he has a plan for the world.

How do we respond to such a time as this?

Parents must reinforce to their children that every person bears the image of God and that individual violence is never the solution. They must explain how the Judeo-Christian worldview has provided greater political, religious and economic freedom than any other form of society in human history.

Marxist, Nazi, and Jihadist ideas always — always — lead to death and ruin.

Educators must equip students with thinking skills based on objective truth. Schools that refuse to acknowledge truth should be held accountable. Take your kids out. Stop donating. There will always be thieves who want to steal the minds of the young. But why in God’s name would we bankroll them?

After World War Two, the Jewish community admonished us to “never forget.” We have forgotten. Most of today’s college students weren’t alive on 9/11. Little in our culture encourages them to remember why terrorism is wrong.

It is up to us to replant the seeds of truth once more.

Jeff Myers, Ph.D., is president of Summit Ministries, a Colorado-based non-profit that equips and supports the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview, and author of Truth Changes Everything.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.