Muslim vs. Non-Muslim views on Zionism

Today there is constant debate over US foreign policy in the Middle East. One important aspect of this debate centers around the issue of Israel???s existence as a state, and the nature of that state. More specifically the question that will be examined asks how Muslim opinions will differ from non-Muslims when concerning Zionism. I hypothesize that Muslim opinions on the subject will not only be much stronger than non-Muslim opinions but they will also identify much more strongly with the Palestinian minority due to the fact that many Palestinians are Muslims. Conversely, non-Muslim opinions will probably tend to be more neutral towards the issue due to either lack of personal sentiment towards the issue or due to not being well informed. As a distinct category, Jewish people would be expected to respond as strongly as Muslims, except in favor of Israel, because of a strong personal connection to the issue. Overall this paper will try to discover if this hypothesis holds when applied to students at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. It will do so by examining a cross-section of all of these groups of students and based on the results of these examinations it will try to provide a better general idea about how this specific group group of students views this issue and if the hypothesis is proven true or false. This examination will go beyond a simple vote of support for or against the State of Israel, but look at levels of support for different versions of that State