Does anyone remember ‘Free Tibet’? Way back when, in the olden days of about the 1990s, if you knew nothing much about the world or politics but wanted to show you generally had the right outlook on things it was normal that you might have a sticker or a poster, or even go on a protest saying ‘Free Tibet’.

It didn’t do any good, of course. Tibet remains doggedly unfree. For it turns out that the Chinese Communist party is not especially interested in the opinions of a few Devon-based sandal-wearers. The CCP occupies Tibet still, and continues to torture, repress and kill anyone there who stands against its brutal occupation.

The government of Israel – unlike China – is vulnerable to international opinion

It seems to me that at least a part of that river of energy has in recent years been directed in a different direction. Specifically into the now even more commonly heard slogan ‘Free Palestine’. Unlike Tibet, the question of what ‘Palestine’ might actually be is an unclear one. Does it mean the West Bank and Gaza? Does it mean just the West Bank? Or does it mean these areas plus all of Israel? On this question there is a happy lack of clarity, which allows the well-meaning heirs of the ‘Free Tibet’ crowd to swim in the same pools as the most rabid anti-Semites and would-be genocidists. And of course the government of Israel – unlike China – is vulnerable to international opinion.

The fact that ‘Free Palestine’ might actually have become the campaign of otherwise uninterested people can be seen from some recent polling in the US and UK.

A poll carried out last month by Ipsos Mori found that among 18 to 34-year-olds in the UK 23 per cent want Britain to support the Palestinians and just 7 per cent us to support the Israelis. What is interesting about this is that it is a bias of the young. People aged between 55 and 75 are overwhelmingly likely to support Israel (22 per cent versus just4 per cent for the Palestinians).

Similar trends seem to prevail in the US. A recent poll there asked voters whether Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack of 7 October has been too much or about right. Naturally, some of this goes along party lines, as it does in the UK, with 56 per cent of Democrat voters saying that it’s been too much (up 21 points from last month). But again it is the age difference that is striking. People under the age of 45 are 17 points more likely than those over 45 to say that it’s been too much. Meaning once again that the Palestinians would appear to be the cause du jour of the younger generation.

What are the causes of this? A supporter of the views of the upcoming generation might say that it demonstrates that the younger generation are more aware than their parents and have – as on so many things – more enlightened, nobler and purer views than the older generation. It is just such a claim that has led country after country to have their energy policies dictated by the whims of a Swedish school truant. When young people skip school to protest about the climate or against Israel (as many have, on the recommendation of the sinisterly misnamed ‘Stop the War coalition’), their elders often claim that this is a demonstration of their commitment to ‘social justice’.

It certainly does not seem to be a demonstration of any deep insight into the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I wonder how many of the young people who go on the marches in London and other cities have any idea what river they are talking about and what sea they are describing when they chant ‘from the river to the sea’. What figure would you put on it? I would guess maybe 10 per cent can point to the areas on a map.

If you think it higher, consider the two young women interviewed at a recent march in London about what their reaction had been when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October. ‘I don’t believe they did, did they?’ said one. ‘Honestly, I think I need to be a bit more clued up on everything that’s going on, so I feel I’m not really qualified to answer that too well,’ said the other. You might have thought that if you weren’t really ‘clued up’ or ‘qualified’, you oughtn’t to be on the streets of London yelling advice at the Israeli government. Ordinarily a certain amount of ‘clued-upness’ is a prerequisite for literally shouting your views at the top of your voice. Or is it?

The other girl then said, banner in hand: ‘I mean, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything that shows that that’s actually happened.’ That’s right. This young woman felt clued up enough to go on a ‘Free Palestine’ march but didn’t seem to be aware that a month earlier Hamas had started the whole thing by murdering 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping 240, including hundreds at the sort of all-night rave that girls like themselves might go to.

So what is going on? Obviously one driver of youth opinion in the US and UK is the consequence of mass immigration and the demographic transformation of a country like our own. But we are not allowed to talk about that, so I will fast forward to the second element. And that is the part that comes packaged in the language of ‘social justice’. For the ideology which has slipped through everything in American culture is also the overwhelming ideological movement among young people in the UK. It has its own language and presumptions – it is concerned about ‘colonialism’ and ‘oppression’ and the rights of ‘indigenous peoples’. Though only in very specific circumstances – like America, Canada and Australia. Not in Britain, of course.

When this ideology looks at the tiny slither of the Middle East called Israel it applies the same language of ‘colonialism’, ‘indigenous peoples’ and so on. The fact that all its claims are upside-down and inside-out is beside the point. That is the lens that has been put on Israel, because it is the only lens these enthusiasts see anything through.