American Jews, Don’t Go on Birthright
Birthright Israel pretends the occupation does not exist and manipulates Jewish heritage and identity into support for an apartheid state. I’ll never go on Birthright, and neither should you.
A Birthright group on camels in Israel-Palestine. (Flickr)
I couldn’t even tell you the first time I went to the West Bank.
In theory, this is occupied Palestine, separate from “Israel proper” not just in international law, but in the hearts and minds of liberal Zionist American Jews — like my thirteen-year-old self, arriving with my family for the first time in “the promised land.”
But for Israelis (and foreign passport holders) the line between Israel and the West Bank, democracy and occupation, legitimate and illegitimate, is almost invisible. And so, I don’t even remember the first time I crossed the “Green Line.”
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