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College students rank Gaza war as least important issue in poll

  • Students rank conflict in the Middle East as the least important issue
  • 34% blame Hamas for the situation in Gaza while 12% blame Biden
  • 81% of students support holding protesters accountable for vandalism

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators lock arms on the UCLA campus Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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(NewsNation) — Only 8% of college students say they’ve participated on either side of campus protests concerning the Israel-Hamas war, while a small portion view the war as an important issue, according to a poll by Generation Lab obtained by Axios.

Students ranked the conflict in the Middle East as the least important issue (13%) facing them out of nine options. Health care reform ranked the top issue (40%), followed by educational funding and access (38%), according to the poll.

In the wake of pro-Palestinian protests that began at Columbia University on April 17 and spread to colleges and universities nationwide, the poll found that 81% of students support universities holding protesters accountable who destroy property, vandalize or illegally occupy campus buildings.

Additionally, the poll found that 34% of students blame Hamas for the current situation in Gaza, compared to 19% who blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and 12% who blame President Joe Biden, Axios reported.

More than two-thirds — 67% — say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable, while 58% say it’s unacceptable to refuse a university’s order to disperse.

Meanwhile, 90% of the poll respondents agreed that blocking pro-Israel students from parts of campus is unacceptable, Axios reported. However, 45% of students support pro-Palestinian encampments either strongly or a little bit, while 24% were strongly or a bit opposed.

The poll surveyed 1,250 college students nationwide from two-year and four-year schools from May 3-6 and has a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

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