More than a quarter of British students say 7 October massacre was ‘defensible’
New survey finds undergraduates far more likely than the wider public to justify atrocities against Israelis
More than one in four British undergraduates believe Hamas’s 7 October massacre was “defensible”, according to a new survey that highlights a distinct divide between students and the wider public.
As reported by The Telegraph, the poll found that 28 percent of students aged 18 to 21 viewed the attacks as defensible, despite Hamas terrorists murdering around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 others during the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Just over a third of students described the atrocities as indefensible, while 37 percent said they were unsure.
The findings come from a survey of 1,018 undergraduates conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and polling company Savanta.
HEPI said the results suggest students are considerably more sympathetic to Hamas than the general public.
A comparison with previous national polling found only a small minority of adults believed the attacks were justified.
The report stated: “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 7 October, 2023 as justifiable.”
The survey also found that students were overwhelmingly critical of Israel’s military response in Gaza. Half described Israel’s actions as “indefensible”, while only 18 percent said the response was defensible. Nearly a third said they did not know.
Responding to the findings, Union of Jewish Students president Louis Danker said: “This latest horrifying statistic is further evidence of a troubling pattern identified in UJS’s recent report, Time for Change. A substantial proportion of students in the UK in 2026 are willing to defend the indefensible actions of a proscribed terrorist group.
“This latest report is indicative of the polarisation and toxicity of debate on campus that leaves Jewish students searching for allyship. Universities must ensure they are not creating permissive environments for extremist views.”
The findings formed part of a wider study examining student attitudes on a range of political and social issues.
Nick Hillman, HEPI’s chief executive, said: “We decided to ask students for their views on issues because of the idea that a ‘culture war’ has taken root, and because universities and those who oversee them have been wrestling with new rules on free speech.
“In general, our results prick the idea that students are ‘woke snowflakes’. Their views often resemble those held among the adult population, either closely or to a notable extent.
“Yet on a small number of issues, students’ opinions are strikingly different. They are more sympathetic to the proscribed terrorist group Hamas, more supportive of reparations for the slave trade and more in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
Hillman added that comparing different polls remains “an inexact science”.
The survey was carried out between 5 and 13 May and questioned undergraduate students across Britain.
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