What do young people think about Israel? What do they think about the rise in anti-Israel hate in the media, and what does it mean for the future of the country? We asked Turning Point USA students, and they had some thoughts.
00:00:29.000Email us as always freedom at charliekirk dot com that is freedom at charliekirk dot com and subscribe to our podcast that is the Charlie Kirkshow podcast page.
00:00:53.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:00.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:00.000When you hear like Epstein, right, do you connect the Epstein issue initially, like immediately, like first connection in your mind, that's also connected to Mossad and Israel, or is they feel separate in your mind?
00:02:12.000I think there's a growing consensus that there's a connection there among Gen Z. Yeah, I think that's definitely gaining velocity.
00:02:25.000We're sending a lot of money over there, not really getting, in my opinion, a huge return on investment.
00:02:31.000And so that's like the first thing that comes to mind, because when people talk about their distrust or disappointment with Israel, that's the first thing that usually comes up, all the money that we're sending them.
00:02:42.000I think we have a lot bigger issues at home.
00:02:44.000I think we should be spending most of our tax dollars on securing our border, keeping our home people safe, rather than, I mean, we've seen illegal immigration that Joe Biden let through our southern border come in and we've seen thousands of Americans die because of it.
00:02:57.000I think we have a much bigger problem on the home front rather than sending money to foreign countries.
00:03:01.000I think it's critical that we remain friends with them.
00:03:25.000The reason why I'm not super persuaded is especially it's mostly because of here recently, we were kind of droughed into it.
00:03:32.000We were negotiating, we were having negotiations and then they struck, they killed the people we were negotiating with and it kind of derailed everything and sped up the conflict a little bit.
00:03:43.000It was the State Department's declared goal that we were working on negotiations with Iran.
00:03:49.000You can say they wouldn't have panned out.
00:03:52.000You can say that maybe they were imminently about to collapse, but we were still in active negotiation, and yet Israel launches Operation Rising Lion to go in and strike Iran while we are mid-negotiation.
00:04:08.000How many of you guys would say you think Israel got us into that conflict?
00:04:16.000I think we were willing to join that conflict.
00:04:17.000I don't think we were pulled in unwantingly as if we were dragged by a leash, you know, in more uncertain terms.
00:04:23.000I think we have the authority and the say of whether or not we want to be involved in that conflict.
00:04:27.000And I think we saw the prosperity that we would unleash if we joined the conflict.
00:04:31.000When you think about Israel's history in the region and even with Hamas or Iran, these nations have sworn to destroy and annihilate the nation of Israel, right?
00:04:43.000At what point does it become, given the context, at what point are you going to be okay or would you never be okay with the U.S. defending Israel's right to exist and essentially saving the country?
00:04:54.000I think they absolutely, I mean, first and foremost, they have a right to exist.
00:04:58.000They have a right to defend themselves.
00:05:14.000So when you guys find out, and I don't know if you're aware of this, but when you find out that we're basically every year we send about almost $4 billion to Israel, does that make you upset, or do you understand it given that they're under sort of crisis?
00:05:28.000I would say upset and the amount over since 1948, it amounts to $319 billion adjusted to inflation.
00:05:35.000And I'd say that I can think of multiple things that we could have spent at home that would have been a better allocation of our taxpayer dollars.
00:05:42.000And I feel like this money could have been well spent in supporting an economy that would support our generation being able to afford homes rather than military strikes for Israel.
00:05:53.000Making America great again starts with making America healthy again.
00:07:32.000I would say like that can kind of follow up with a lot of other things.
00:07:34.000Like a lot of other like even European nations, like I feel like they were kind of like even Trump had to like kind of even out NATO so that everyone was kind of paying the same, not the same amount, obviously, five percent.
00:07:45.000But it just because like nobody wants a, no, a lot of Americans do not want people freeloading off the United States.
00:07:51.000And as you said, 319 billion being sent to Israel over all these years, that's comparable to the amount we've sent to Ukraine.
00:07:57.000And there's been a lot of controversy over that, and yet not as much over Israel.
00:08:01.000And people are judged very heavily if they critique that aid that is given to Israel.
00:08:05.000I think I'm pro Israel, I support them.
00:08:08.000I believe Israel has a right to exist.
00:08:10.000I believe that they are the only state in that region with the right to exist.
00:08:13.000But why are we treating them differently than any other ally?
00:08:16.000Shouldn't we be judging them, holding them to the same standard.
00:08:19.000Your view is articulated by a lot of young people and held by a lot of young people.
00:08:23.000Because let's now take a step back and let's now broaden it.
00:08:27.000How many of you guys think when a lawmaker and a man I respect like Ted Cruz uses the Bible to justify aid to Israel doesn't even know the verse, do you guys think that's like not the best way to approach this?
00:08:48.000Because I think a lot of people, they look especially at the writings of Paul where he talks about how the new flesh is not the same as the people in the old covenant.
00:08:55.000The new flesh is everybody, is everyone thinking about Romans 9.
00:09:18.000I feel like it's great to have a concern for your country.
00:09:20.000Do you think that APAC represents Again, I'm not saying I believe this, but I think this is what you're saying, that it represents a kind of cutting in line of prioritization away from the American people.
00:09:49.000That the entirety of the idea of a PAC is to represent a group, but the fact that we're having, we're allowing a group that doesn't even represent American interests to influence the people who are supposed to be representing us, I have a huge problem with.
00:10:02.000And that's why I've said this before, and a lot of people don't like when I say it.
00:10:05.000I actually think there's probably like twenty representatives between Senate and House who I think are actually fully doing the work of the American people and don't have the interests of some group holding their side.
00:10:17.000But when you hear that lots of other countries also are lobbying, do you think, I mean, that you probably don't know the names of those countries, but it's happening.
00:10:27.000Does that upset you equally or is APAC just getting all the press because it's so top of mind?
00:10:33.000If those other ones are doing the same thing, of course, I do not think that other countries should be telling us how to spend, you know, the telling our representatives and people who are here to represent all of us that they should be focusing outside of the United States.
00:10:51.000I find prophecy as policy generally to be the to be theologically problematic.
00:10:56.000I mean, there's plenty of things that the Bible says that have been done throughout parts of history that certainly a nation state doing today, we would see as a bit of a problem.
00:11:04.000When it comes to sending these, what you said, $300 billion to any foreign country, all I can think about is across our own southern border, we have a real military in the form of the cartel that kill thousands of people, and that's leaving out the hundreds of thousands of Americans that have died to drug overdoses due to drugs that have come across our southern border.
00:11:28.000And it's insulting that that money goes anywhere else because we have such a huge problem here.
00:11:31.000Yeah, I want to kind of flip this word association game around just slightly because we haven't done it yet.
00:11:37.000When I bring up Gaza, Gazans, Hamas, let's just keep Hamas out of it.
00:12:53.000What is the impression that you guys have of what's been happening in Gaza?
00:12:57.000It doesn't have to be a singular word.
00:12:58.000I would say like a severe loss of life.
00:13:00.000I feel like that's always a bad thing, no matter which way you look at it, no matter who's, I mean, yeah, basically no matter who's dying, it's never really a good thing.
00:13:19.000And actually on our school's campus, they'll have these little missing kid posters and in those posters, they, you'll read about these kids who have died, to, You know, they try to have us to have more sympathy for them.
00:13:33.000And it's like, at the end of the day, as you had mentioned, you know, they are humans.
00:14:22.000This is why there's so many cabinet secretaries.
00:14:25.000This is why we have a government that can do a lot of things.
00:14:28.000It's because we can focus on foreign stuff and we can also focus on domestic stuff.
00:14:32.000I personally am pretty all right with a lot of what we have been doing, but I do understand where a lot of Gen Z is coming from with a lot of this because, like I said, we can't buy homes.
00:14:44.000Do you guys see Jew hate increasing amongst your generation?
00:14:48.000I think that there's a lot of collusion between criticism and hate.
00:14:52.000I think that there is legitimate hate out there, but a lot of criticism is being framed as hatred or you don't support this because you're criticizing it.
00:15:01.000And that's like, I think that's a little inseparable from what the Jewish hate is.
00:15:06.000Do you guys think it's anti Semitic to say you don't like BB Netanyahu?
00:16:31.000If you're going to say I hate Jews over and over and over again, like if I'm going to be convicted of the crime, I might as well do the crime.
00:16:37.000I fear the same thing happens with all the talk of race.
00:16:40.000The more we talk about it, the more racism actually happens.
00:17:37.000My wife and I had the best experiences ever.
00:17:39.000I saw where Jesus rose from the dead and he walked on water.
00:17:41.000But also, I'm an American and I represent a generation that can't afford anything and that we are like flooded with illegals and no one speaks English and our hospitals are clogged.
00:17:53.000I think we need to have the prudence to reject the Jew hate like okay we're not going to put up with that that's dumb but also if you call everyone an antisemite if they don't take a puritanical view of the Netanyahu government then I think that's it's bad for everybody If you guys have private student loan debt, this is the best way out.
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00:19:48.000Or sometimes there actually might be something beneath the surface that you're not doing well.
00:19:52.000So do you guys think that it's a messaging problem?
00:19:54.000problem or that it's a like an actual material concept problem it's a values and priorities problem yeah it's definitely a messaging problem these politicians they don't need to be car salesmen you know we need we need the truth we need the direct truth and nothing but the truth but these politicians they're not they're not truthful you know they're digging gen z down in the dirt who represents you best outside of trump Well, thank you.
00:20:27.000No, again, again, the reason I'm doing this is that the reason we're doing this focus group, and Andrew will attest., I have been trying to tell them that there is an earthquake coming on this issue and in the country, and they don't believe me.
00:20:40.000So I'm like, why don't you just hear it from people themselves?
00:20:44.000If we don't get young conservatives in, we're going to end up losing to the Democratic Party because they're starting to get the younger generation involved within their representation.
00:20:53.000And it's just, if we don't start getting these young people from our generation or the next generation above us into Congress, then we're going to start losing.
00:21:03.000When this debate pops up on your social media feed or on campus, what is the most persuasive pro-Israel point that you have seen or heard.
00:21:14.000Talk about more about how they help us with intelligence, especially with this new conflict with Iran.
00:21:19.000If you want to use that, say like, Hey, Israel is very helpful in us deflecting with Iran and giving us influence over them because we can have more intelligence.
00:21:27.000Do you find it persuasive when the Israeli tourism board is bragging about how many gay pride parades they have in Tel Aviv?
00:21:41.000I would try to educate about Islamic terrorism.
00:21:45.000I think that's major, especially with the fact that we lived through 911, I think a lot of people in my generation don't understand how big of a situation it was.
00:21:55.000We know nothing about it, for the most part.
00:21:58.000I think maybe one other point maybe is about the Holy Land as well.
00:22:01.000You could make a point going to the Holy Land, filming videos and saying, Israel is a better protector of the Holy Land than if there was a Palestinian state.
00:22:06.000The argument I make more than anything else.
00:22:11.000When the United States is like a mostly Christian country, not all Christian obviously, but a mostly Christian country, a lot of people can sympathize that that is the Holy Land.
00:22:19.000That is where Jesus Christ lived and was crucified.
00:23:26.000But what you're both doing, you know, soon to be Catholic, current Catholic, you're saying that, hey, if you talked more about the Holy Land, the place.
00:23:36.000reality, the artefacts, right, the discoveries, the where Christ our Lord bled on, you know, on, you know, in the Catholic Church, the Villa de la Rosa is a big deal, right?
00:23:49.000The Stations of the Cross, Catholicism is a very tactile religion.
00:23:53.000You would think that that actually is more persuasive than any theological argument being like, this holy land must be protected so that we can access it, that we can worship it, that we can prove, and we don't want a bunch of Muslims taking this place over like they did with Bethlehem.
00:24:07.000Do you think that is a winning argument for evangelicals, for Christians, more so than gay pride parades in Haifa?