New Survey Suggests Drop in Evangelical Support for Israel
The University of North Carolina at Pembroke and the Barna Group have conducted a study that may suggest young Evangelical Christian support for the State of Israel has dropped drastically. The study was conducted via online polling measuring over 700 people’s (ages 18–29) attitudes towards Israel and Palestine. The main question was whether the respondents sided with Israel or Palestine regarding the "Israeli-Palestinian dispute."
No side had a majority as 42.2% of the 700 expressed no clear support for either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Only 33.6% expressed support for Israel while 24.3 said they supported Palestine. While these results do not demonstrate a clear leaning in young Evangelicals views, the drop in support for Israel is noteworthy since over the past century, Evangelical Christians in the United States have generally supported the State of Israel for political and theological reasons.
The surveyors also asked if religious beliefs affected the young people’s answer. Around 44% said that religious or theological belief did not affect their views on the Israel-Palestine issue. Thirty-eight percent responded that religious belief influenced them in support of Israel. Slightly over 17% said that their religious orientation partially drove them to support Palestinians.
If these results can be replicated with a larger amount of people, they may provide an accurate picture of young Evangelical Americans’ views of Israel.
