No, writes Jonathan Marks. Although a Gallup poll taken near the end of the 2014 war in Gaza pointed to such a decline, the latest statistics show this to be but a temporary blip:
[P]revious dramatic declines in American support for Israel, as indicated by this poll or that poll, had been followed by recovery. . . .
It is therefore of some interest that Gallup is out with a new poll. . . . Approximately 57 percent of eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds surveyed [in both 2013 and 2015] said that they sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians in the conflict. Sympathy with the Palestinians has also held steady at about 23 percent.
Compare this year to 2005, the year anti-Israel activists started Israel Apartheid Week, a period devoted to demonizing Israel, mainly on college campuses, which is in full swing as I write. That year, support for Israel among the same age group stood at 51 percent. Ten years of a relentless campaign against Israel, specifically targeting the young, has not had its intended effect. It is perhaps for this reason, along with the wearying sameness of the distortions trotted out year after year, that Israeli Apartheid Week is getting almost no coverage in the United States this year. . . .
I do not mean to say that we should not be concerned about these campaigns, which may well, if they are not resisted, have the long-term effect of making Zionism a suspect, if not quite a dirty, word. But those who seized on one striking poll to predict that Israel had finally worn out its welcome with young Americans should be asked to comment on this one. It appears that when they hoped young Americans would pressure Israel into making unilateral concessions with a view to engaging nonexistent peace partners, they may have been indulging in wishful thinking.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/03/02/sorry-peter-beinart-young-americans-still-havent-turned-against-israel