“We’ve seen quite a bit of sympathy for Palestinian civilians,” said Sahar Aziz, a law school professor and director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University. “They recognize that Palestinians have grievances. Many of these young people don’t rely on formal educational institutions for information. And this is one of those topics where they rely heavily on things that are on the internet and that are on social media.” Aziz also wrote the book “The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom.”
Social media, combined with the social justice movements of the past several years, may be helping supporters of Palestinians organize in ways never seen before.
“You were also seeing a large number of African American, young people, Latino, members of the LGBTQ community, who were active during the Black Lives Matter movement,” Aziz said, “And they were also active during the massive protests at airports, when Trump issued his Muslim ban, which was the first time you saw mass mobilization in defense of Muslim civil rights.”
In a Gallup survey taken prior to the Israel-Hamas war, for the first time ever, nearly half of Democrats said they now feel more sympathy for Palestinians — an 11 percentage-point jump over the previous year. Meanwhile, about one-third of independent voters say they now sympathize with Palestinians as well — an increase of 6 percentage points from 2022. Republican viewpoints remained unchanged, with a vast majority still siding with Israel.
— To read and watch the interview with Professor Aziz, click here.
