Antisemitism on a California Campus: Perceptions and Views Among Students

This article explores the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes among university students. Critics maintain that hostility toward Israel is an indicator of the "new antisemitism." Activists and their advocates insist that anti-Israel attitudes and behaviors reflect a political conflict and have little to do with antisemitism. Existing empirical scholarship shows a strong link. Evidence is presented from a survey of a random sample (N=468) of undergraduate students at the University of California, Irvine. The results show a modest but statistically significant correlation between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes. However, the evidence also shows that the two sets of attitudes are mostly separate. Multivariate analysis demonstrates that anti-Israel attitudes are the strongest predictors of antisemitism even in the presence of other hypothesized determinants. The article also explores the demographic factors contributing to simultaneously high levels of antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes. Contrary to much commentary, but consonant with a significant stream of scholarship, campus effects are weak to nonexistent.