Israel Hayom daily just published a survey of Jewish Israeli teenagers, and the country is abuzz because of its outcome.
Overwhelming number of students in grades 11 and 12 “love” Israel and want to build a future here. Some 59% identify as right-wing, only 13% identify with the Left. 60% say soldier who shot a subdued terrorist in Hebron last month should not be tried.
Let us take these one by one.
The fact that they love Israel – that is great. “The respondents said the best thing about our country was the sense that we are one big family and our tendency to close ranks in times of crisis. The biggest problem facing the nation, according to the survey, is the fragile security situation”. Yes, that is pretty much the story of Israel. That our youngsters seem to understand it is interesting. In many countries being young means being rebellious, but Israeli teens do not seem to want to be rebellious against their own society.
The fact that they are right wing – that was disheartening for many (guess of which political camp) but is hardly surprising. In the recent Pew study of Israel, Jewish adults also tilted heavily rightward, with 8% on the left, 55% on the center and 37% on the right. So the teens are more to the right than the adults. That, I assume, is because the younger they are, the more they have a tendency to hold strong views. And it is also because the younger they are, the more traditional they are (traditional and religious families have more children) and there is a strong correlation between religiosity and political views in Israel. According to Pew, the younger you go, the higher the share of traditional Jewish Israelis. The secular are 52% when one looks at ages 50 and up, but only 44% of people aged 18-29 (Pew did not survey teens).
What they say about the soldier – yes, that is disturbing. But here too the youngsters are merely following the footsteps of older Jewish Israelis. I wrote about this incident a few weeks ago, and have nothing much to add:
The public seems to confuse its love for IDF soldiers with the need to maintain law, order and morality in Israel.
Those young Israelis in the survey cannot look at that soldier in Hebron without putting themselves in his position. Many of them will be there next year, or the year after. Many of them understand that being there involves danger and tricky situations. They want to make sure that their country has their back as they go on this mission of providing security for Israel. But as they do, their views tend to turn from patriotic to idiotic – and at times dangerously so.
So almost half of them believe that Arab Israelis should not have representation in the Knesset. And Israel Hayom rightly observes that this is a result of provocations and actions by Arab Knesset members. The representatives of the Arab minority do share a responsibility to maintain good relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel – a responsibility, as I wrote not long ago, they do not take seriously enough.
Upon witnessing Arab Israeli leaders pit their supporters against the majority, an Israeli Jew cannot help but wonder: What do they want to achieve? What are they aiming for?
But you can’t blame it all on the Arabs. You can’t avoid the conclusion that young Israelis – being patriotic, and loving their country, and understanding that political situation – are becoming disturbingly sloppy in thinking about the meaning of democracy and disturbingly lax in their insistence on guarding it with as much dedication as their insistence on keeping Israel safe.
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