After reading, then re-reading Jason Willick’s Monday column “Why we love Israel,” I was upset. I was not upset about the way he portrayed right-wing Israelis, and I am far from a supporter of Sheldon Adelson. Rather, I was upset how the article comes across as a generalization about the Birthright experience, as one operated by hot-headed rightists and supporters of settlers, where brainwashing about the devil incarnate that is “Modern Islam” is rife. It is this sort of sordid idea of the “Birthright experience” that might corrupt an altogether powerful, if not engaging and challenging, trip.
I will admit that I am biased in my support for Birthright. I had likely a life-changing experience, going on a Birthright bus in the summertime between my freshman and sophomore year at Berkeley. I went with limited to no knowledge about Israel and as a lapsed “cultural Jew.” I did not come back immediately chanting “Am Yisrael Hi” — a popular nationalist chorus which translates to “The people of Israel live” — but it did spark an interest in Judaism, social justice and Israeli politics. Those interests evolved into internships, joining Jewish clubs — even starting one called Challah for Hunger — becoming a part of the Jewish community at Cal mostly through Berkeley Hillel and ultimately the decision to study abroad in Israel last semester. It was perhaps the best semester I have had in college, which is undoubtedly rooted in the first time I went to Israel on Birthright.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that Birthright spins a certain narrative about Israel. I know plenty of students like Willick who did not enjoy the trip because of “Zionist propaganda” and feelings that Birthright organizers were being disingenuous to the experience of what living in Israel and being Israeli is really like. I too remember feeling that way at times and did what Willick did. I challenged my peers and guides to sharpen their opinions and be clear in their reasoning and rationale. In fact, I think questioning is what is missing most from the 10-day whirlwind that Birthright takes its participants on. It is the responsibility of the trip facilitators to create an open space for dialogue throughout the trip and the responsibility of the students to continue to ask questions.
I also commend Willick for going on the trip, for some skeptical Jews eligible for the trip would maybe not go so far as to sign up and experience it firsthand. However, I am saddened to hear that the off-putting, mostly political experiences he had have negatively colored so many of his thoughts about Israel. It is a shame politics were at the forefront of what should be and is billed as a Jewish trip, for Jewish students. Birthright has the potential for being a point of entry into better understanding Israel through a Jewish lens, not a political gun-scope. I know this is an ideal that Birthright can aspire to, but for the time being, following the model of questioning and dialoguing is the best thing participants can do when it comes to ideological issues surrounding politics and policy.
In the last paragraph, Willick mentions he left Israel filled with fear. As someone who is also concerned about the internal and external policies of the currently elected government, I hope fear inspires more than words. I hope it inspires him to continue to question his relationship with Israel as a political entity, or in any other form in which that relationship manifests itself. I hope that questioning will lead to action, and will to either go back to Israel or work from Berkeley to make the kind of change he hopes to see. Maybe then Willick will see the value of Birthright not as a sinister experience, but a point of entry into an evolving relationship with Israel.
Ben Brint is a senior at UC Berkeley and traveled to Israel through Birthright.
Contact the opinion desk at [email protected]
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
Blankfart, and his anti-Semitic fellow idiot-logues at the misinformation station, KPFA, might tell you how much they appreciate “freedom of expression” as well as their Palestinian pets, but they will completely ignore-either over the air or in written form-the violence we have seen over the past few days by Islamofascists worldwide vs genuine freedom of expression in demanding the murder of the filmmaker. Of course, the Palestinians are among those involved in said barbaric ejaculations…
Quite interesting that American Jews, born and raised in the US who have never even set foot in Israel, are not only allowed to immigrate there at their pleasure, but are enthusiastically welcomed. While Palestinians whose family lived on the land for centuries, and were forcibly evicted themselves, are prevented at gunpoint from returning to their homeland.
Quite a “democracy” you have there.
this is grossly oversimplified. Come on,
current student, try reading real history rather than Palestinian propaganda. Most Palestinians left either because they listened to Arab radio telling them to leave their villages and when the Arabs were victorious, they could return to take both their land as well as that of the Jewish infidel. Or, as the eminent historian Bernard Lewis wrote, they left their villages because said villages were in the Middle of a war zone.
BTW, from 1948-67, the West Bank was under dictatorial rule by Jordan and Egypt similarly controlled Gaza. There were no terrorist attacks upon the occupying Jordanians and Egyptians, only regularly expressed desires to liquidate the Jews of Israel. This advocacy of Jewish genocide continues to this very day.
Ben, many of your peers who do not take the opportunity are not merely skeptical, as you say. Rather, we reject and protest the notion that a free vacation for credulous American Jews is in anyway something we can treat as a “birthright” while millions of Palestinians live in exile or as second class citizens.
Thanks to Mr. Blankfort for attesting to the fact that Israel is an apartheid state.
Why else would majorities of ASUC have voted to divest from Israel? And they will again, sooner than you think.
MorganFreiheit, have you taken a stupid pill. There is no remote comparison between racist apartheid S. Africa and Israel. Unlike S. Africa, Israeli Arabs carry no passbooks, can marry whom they choose, can buy property where they wish, and elect representatives to Parliament. To call Israel an apartheid society is a litmus of ignorance.
Israel is the only state in the Middle East that does not practie apartheid. Blankfort has psychological problems when it comes to the truth about Israel.
Freedom House ranks Israel as free as the United States.
Now that’s a nice, level-headed piece. Well done, Mr. Brint.
What a difference between Ben Brint’s Op-Ed and that of Jason Williock. While Brint’s is an even-buhanded commentary, Willock’s is nothing short of a piece of propaganda. This is best conveyed by Willock’s application of the pejorative “ethnic cleansing” to Israel. That epithet is no more true of Israel than the application of the term “apartheid” BS swilled so often by pro-Palestinian partisans.
Moreover, Willock’s op-ed is strikingly similar to a piece of propaganda written by someone who calls herself a student, one Rachel Cohen, whose like-minded slam at Israel appear a month ago in the Bay Area community’s Jewish journal, J Weekly. Willock and Cohen appear to have been coached in their commentaries by the same pro-Palestinian minion.
Of course, Willock demonstrated his biases in an op-ed in wrote for the Daily Cal in which he defended the right of the Black Student Union and Muslim Student Union to invite the unabashedly anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan to speak on campus.
Mr. Willock, you and the likes of Rachel Cohen have been outed as promulgators of the sort of propaganda we so regularly see from Students for Justice in Palestine, JVP and Kesher Enoshi. Readers, please note: whenever you see future commentaries by Mr. Willock, consider the bias of the source before you take what he writes seriously.
Dan Spitzer appears not only to have his own Spitzerian dictionary in which historical events and situations are disguised as something else, he insists that everyone else put aside their Webster and their own accumulated knowledge and do the same. Before the state of Israel was formed, some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs lived there who could not be found there afterward. If you read Israeli historians such as Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim, to know that those Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, although the term did not exist, then, and over 400 of their villages destroyed and those who left under coercion or out of fear, were not allowed to return. (Morris, who did the initiial investigation of Israeli archives, later regretted that the 150,000 Palestinians who had remained in the Galilee, had not been forced to leave, as well, but the fruits of his research remained.)
As to use the term, apartheid, to describe Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories, Israeli journalists have been using that term for decades to accurately depict a reality that enforces a separateness that is even greater than what existed in South Africa, according to South Africans, including some Jews who emigrated to Israel. In fact, for all intents and purposes, Israel/Palestine has been a single state since 1967, but with the building of the Jewish only settlements and Jewish only roads, there is no other word that more accurately describes the situation.
The major funder of Birthright Israel is, of course, the odious casino owning toad, Sheldon Adelson, who is trying to buy the 2012 election with the profits he has made from his Las Vegas and Macau gambling dens. But I wonder, why do American born Jews, neither of whose parents or grandparents were born in Israel, have more of a right to live there than Palestinian Arabs who were? And why do Jews who decide to turn their backs on this country not lose their citizenship and their right to participate in US elections when they elect to become Israeli citizens? Should Spitzer’s favorite commander-of-thieves, Netanyahu, get his way and his war, those are questions more and more Americans will be asking.
I won’t even dignify Jeffrey Blankfart’s idiocy with a response, other than to say that Mr. Blankfort has spent his life denigrating Israel and is an ardent example of the classic KPFA anti-Semite. He makes David Duke and the repulsive Allison Weir seem like people who find some merit in Jews. Blankfart lives to hate Israel in general and Jews in particular and is known as one of the Bay Area’s premiere bigots.
Just to site a single example, to even remotely compare Israel with apartheid S. Africa tells you how sick Mr. Blankfqrt is. No pass books in Israel, no restrictions on marriage for Israeli Palestinians, and full political representation in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) shows just how loony and off-base Blankfart is.
I’ll simply say, “Hold your nose. Mr. Blankfart has entered the building and spewing his toxic gas and waste material…
Spitzer, your responses are relatively barren of factual substance. I suggest you take the time to read up on both sides before writing one off. Blankfort’s account of what happened is far and above more accurate than anything you’ve said on the subject.
AnOski, read my comments above to MorganFreiheit. Unlike you, I have read both sides. I read garbage put out by the likes of Ian Pappe and Stupids for Just Us in Palestine regurgitated on a daily basis. And I also read the historical works of Bernard Lewis, a prize-winning academic who also criticizes Jewish actions in his well-documented research. AnOski, do you genuinely read accurate histories? It is apparent you consume only the propaganda disseminated by your goose-steping pro-Palestinian minion.
AnOski, apparently it bothers you not a whit that Palestinian leaders and their covenants (see those of both Hamas and the PLA) call for the liquidation of Israeli Jews. Apparently, those who advocated genocide are still sympathetic people for you, aren’t they?
And how about the Palestinians who danced by the hundreds in the streets of the W. Bank when the Twin Towers came down? I’m certain you would deem that “understandable,” won’t you?
Finally, the scores of Palestinians screaming death to the US following the YouTube sightings of the anti-Muslim film–that doesn’t bother you at all, does it?
“Before the state of Israel was formed, some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs lived there who could not be found there afterward.”
And a similar number of Jews lived in places such as Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The difference is that while the Jews were harassed or forcibly expelled, the vast majority of those Arabs left voluntarily, and in were advised to leave by their Arab neighbors who planned on destroying Israel. Well, things didn’t quite work out the way they planned. These Arabs chose to reject the plan of peaceful coexistence and throw their lot in with the aggressors, and they reaped the consequences of their actions. Sometimes life’s a bitch…
It’s a verifiable fact that there are housing complexes in Israel that are exclusively reserved for Jewish residents. Their supreme court even upheld the legality of them
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/supreme-court-backs-jews-only-housing-in-jaffa-neighborhood-1.323421
if that isn’t ethnic cleansing, what is it??
The Israeli Supreme Court to the contrary has said any Israeli citizens (and not all of them are Jews, there are Arabs on the Supreme Court) can llive in a Jewish settlement. The anti-Jewish leftist clique likes to say only “Jewish” residents can live in these places, but a correction should be “only Israelis can live.” Meanwhile, Current Student, the Palestinian Authority has it on the books as a death sentence for any Arab who legally sells his land to a Jew and has executed Arabs retroactively, with one currently on trial. So just who is engaging in ethnic cleansing? The Palestinians also insist no Jew can live in a Palestinian state while over 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab with equal rights by law with Jews. Israel has Arab police officers, judges, businessmen, members of teh Knesset and a lively democracy. The Palestinians are terrorist supporting warmongers and anti-Semites who appeal to people like Current Student who are ignorant but love to swallow thier propaganda.
Excellent!