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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGallup Shows Split In Backing For Israel In Gaza War, With Younger Americans Unsupportive
July 25, 2014 8:02am
WASHINGTON (JTA) A Gallup poll shows that support among Americans for Israel during the Gaza Strip conflict is divided, and is low among younger Americans.
The poll posted on the pollsters website Thursday showed a statistical dead heat between those who believe Israels actions against Hamas are justified, 42 percent, and those who believe they are unjustified, 39 percent. The difference was within the polls margin of error of four percentage points.
Reactions to Hamas were lopsided, with 70 percent calling the groups actions unjustified and just 11 percent describing them as justified.
Older Americans were much likelier to say Israels actions were justified: 55 percent of those over 65; 53 percent of those between 50 and 64; 36 percent of those 30-49 and just 25 percent of those 18-29.
There were other dramatic differences in how subgroups measured support for Israel, with 65 percent of Republicans calling Israels actions justified and just 31 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Independents saying they were justified; 50 percent of whites said Israel was justified, while just 25 percent of non-whites agreed with that characterization; 51 percent of men agreed and 33 percent of women.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/07/25/news-opinion/politics/gallup-shows-split-in-backing-for-israel-in-gaza-war-with-younger-americans-unsupportive#ixzz38XFXIwG7
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)The older people are, the more likely their views are not only already formed and (generally) held fast, but those views were formed by pre-scripted narratives written to unquestioningly support "our" Israel against "the Soviet's" Arabs.
And as anyone with parents knows, 'what i know is what i know' and they're not often prone ot second-guessing what htey 'know.'
The younger you get though the more access to and familiarity with the internet you get - and the internet doesn't have a lot of narrative control going on (despite some herculean efforts in varied quarters). It's thus easy to get access to a lot of raw information as well as a broad variety of perspectives and opinions.
Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)Or, more importantly, how to interpret it?
It seems we've entered a post-modern era where we buy components thinking we've acquired a ready made machine. Then we stare at the pieces trying to obtain meaning from something we don't understand.
This is the age of the internet. Where literally ANYONE can publish whatever they want and whether or not it comes to the forefront of a discussion is based on it's marketability; marketability itself has become subject to an almost random meaninglessness. This has almost nothing to do with its intellectual value or rhetorical weightiness. It simply means we've proliferated discourse without elevating it.
This is where social critics point out the myth of "choice" in the age of technology. We've produced immense quantities of unstratified information and handed it to the ignorant, asking them what is and is not important.
In the end, the internet has an immense control over its own narrative motivation. That narrative is "it's important because it is here." That's the narrative we find within the minds of long-lost narcissists. No justification, no discrimination, just total immersion.
If we gain anything from information published on the internet, it is in spite of this reality, not because of it.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)There have to be authoritative bodies on subjects. We can't all be specialized in everything. That is an impossible task. So, the news machine of the internet, which has quite literally become an information pump, tries to turn us all into our own researchers, writers and broadcasters.
We see these formerly immense, singular broadcast agencies like CNN taking on the identity of the undifferentiated internet news machine. They have segments showing us tweets on flat screen TVs, which we then view on our own flat screen, and the anchors ask us to be our own anchors, finding meaning in the 140 character ramblings of some potential moron we have never met and know nothing about.
cprise
(8,445 posts)When they do open up a web browser, the experience tends to center around Facebook (...or trying to use Google to find "the search site" . The MSM prattle about Twitter and such is meant as much to make the viewers feel 'with it' as for their own staff.
oldandhappy
(6,719 posts)War is not the answer. And the U.S. is complicit. All that money into politics keeps us from being able to yell STOP and have it mean something.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Best post award. [URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]