Is that pro-Palestinian protester an antisemite? Maybe not

In short, facts don’t cure every bias, but they reveal which biases can be cured.

Is every anti-Israel slogan an expression of antisemitism? It’s tempting to answer reflexively, either “yes, of course” or “no, it’s just politics.” Both instincts miss the point. The more instructive question is what happens to people’s views when they’re confronted with facts that test those views. Recent attitudinal research offers a clear pattern: A sizable slice of anti-Israel sentiment softens once reliable information is introduced. Another slice does not budge. The difference between those two groups tells us far more about prejudice, persuasion and the power of peer culture than any viral chant on a quad.
Start with a basic observation: A significant minority of Americans (especially younger ones) express anti-Israel positions and support for a Palestinian state. That finding alone doesn’t prove antisemitism. In today’s social climate, identity and solidarity often drive political expression; online networks reward conformity; and many respondents admit they have “no opinion” until a survey forces a choice. In other words, some people aren’t hostile; they’re unprepared.

This is not a flattering diagnosis, but it is a hopeful one. In multiple surveys, when respondents were given concrete information — about incentives for terror, about the denial of Jewish history and rights, about the real-world implications of slogans — stated support for maximalist anti-Israel positions dropped, sometimes by double digits. One study saw support for a Palestinian state fall by as much as 24 percentage points after clarifying what kind of state was being imagined. Another found that 67.8% of students shifted their view of “from the river to the sea” once they learned what the phrase has meant in practice. Those are not tiny nudges; they’re big swings that separate the merely aligned from the sincerely convinced.

And that brings us to the hard core. Across these data points, roughly one-fifth of respondents remain committed even after factual correction. Call this the “rigidity threshold.” People on this end tend to display confirmation bias: when evidence contradicts their prior views, they don’t adjust — they double down. If the information involves denial of Jewish rights or rationalization of violence against Jews, and the respondent still won’t move, we are no longer in the realm of “pro-liberation” idealism. We are staring at ideological antisemitism.

This distinction matters for three reasons.

First, public discourse. Lumping every anti-Israel statement into the antisemitic bucket is analytically sloppy and strategically counterproductive. It alienates potential allies who can be persuaded by facts and moral clarity. Conversely, pretending that nothing in the anti-Israel universe is antisemitic grants amnesty to those who cheer de-Judaization and terror. A functioning society needs both precision and courage: Identify hatred when it’s present, and marshal evidence when it isn’t yet hardened into hate.

Second, education and media literacy. If a third of respondents are “don’t know” or “no opinion,” and another large tranche is swayed by clear information, then the public square isn’t a battlefield of entrenched enemies — it’s a noisy classroom with too few teachers. The antidote to forced-choice politics is not more shouting; it’s structured exposure to facts that make evasions uncomfortable. Yes, discomfort. Cognitive dissonance is not a bug of democratic debate; it’s a feature. It moves the movable.

Third, measurement. Pollsters and institutions should stop reporting raw toplines as if they’re final truth. They should present “post-information” results alongside initial responses. If a respondent supports a Palestinian state in the abstract but withdraws support when told the state in question promotes terror or erases Jewish history, the second answer is the meaningful one. Likewise, if exposure to a slogan’s eliminationist pedigree changes a student’s mind, that should be the figure cited on campus and in the press. We learn far more about the health of our polity by measuring the distance between first impression and informed judgment.

There is a cautionary note here. Social networks (both real and virtual) shape norms, especially among adolescents and young adults. Prejudice spreads not only through arguments but through ambiance: the normalization of certain tropes, the silence that meets certain threats, the applause that greets transgressive chants. People marinated in such environments can drift from performative pose to hardened posture. That’s how ignorance curdles into ideology.

So where does this leave us? With a task and a test.

The task is to insist on specificity. Don’t ask, “Do you support a Palestinian state?” Ask: “Do you support a Palestinian state that condones violence against Jews and denies Jewish rights?” Don’t ask, “Is this slogan inspiring?” Ask: “Do you support what this slogan has historically meant for Jews on the ground?” These are not gotchas; they are clarifiers. They turn sentiment into responsibility.

The test is humility — ours and theirs. For those calling out antisemitism, be exact and be fair. For those chanting the newest moral fashion, be curious enough to interrogate your own side. If, after honest engagement with facts, your view changes, that’s not weakness; it’s integrity. If it doesn’t, and the facts you reject involve Jewish humanity and rights, then we’ve named something darker, and we should be unafraid to say so.

In short, facts don’t cure every bias, but they reveal which biases can be cured. That clarity is a public good — one we should demand in classrooms, newsrooms and every space where slogans travel faster than truth. PJC

Irwin J. (Yitzchak) Mansdorf, PhD, is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs specializing in political psychology. This article first appeared on The Times of Israel.