by Albert Tait, Telegraph
Poll comparison study shows wide difference in views between students and adults over attack on Israel
More than a quarter of undergraduates believe the October 7 Hamas attacks were “defensible”, according to a survey.
The findings suggested that students were more likely to believe the atrocities were justifiable than the public, the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) said.
There are claims that anti-Semitism has become “normalised” on university campuses since the Hamas-led terror attacks in 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
HEPI’s survey of 1,018 students aged 18 to 21 found that 28 per cent said they believed the proscribed terrorist organisation’s attacks were “defensible”, with 34 per cent saying they were “indefensible”.
YouGov polling of more than 2,000 adults in Great Britain in 2024 found only 5 per cent thought the attacks were “justified”, with 69 per cent saying they were “not justified”.
The HEPI report said: “Although ‘justified’ might be regarded as qualitatively different to ‘defensible’ and although there was a two-year gap between the YouGov and HEPI/Savanta polls, it nonetheless seems highly likely that a larger proportion of students than adults as a whole regard Hamas’s attacks on October 7 2023 as justifiable.”
Research published by the Union of Jewish Students in March 2026 revealed “disturbing” evidence of anti-Semitism across UK universities.
The report found that nearly one in four students, or 23 per cent, had seen behaviour that targeted Jewish students for their religion or ethnicity. It also warned that “anti-Semitism has become normalised on our campuses” and that “glorification of terrorism is prevalent and unpunished”.