Tuesday, July 16, 2019

J Street Seeks to Turn Young Jews Against Israel

A host of progressive organizations use their ostensible Jewishness as cover or sanction for their campaigns against Israel.

There's no better example of how this works than J Street's recent launch of a program to compete with Birthright Israel, the 20-year-old organization that's provided free trips to Israel for more than 600,000 young Jews around the world.

According to J Street, "The omission and erasure of Palestinian perspectives and narratives on these [Birthright] trips creates a political environment that allows home demolitions, settlement expansion, and other destructive policies of occupation to continue unchallenged." Instead, the group says, "Organized educational trips for young American Jews must present a robust, nuanced and honest view of the current realities on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian Territory."

Finally, no mention of the fact that the Palestinians have, again and again-and again-refused to make peace with Israel when it was offered.

Finally, Halbfinger relays how students on the trip were turned off by Israel and Zionism: "By dinnertime, two participants said they were reconsidering their belief in a Jewish state." He quotes one: "I came in here a very ardent Zionist ... You never know when a Holocaust might happen again. Yet, coming here, I'm starting to doubt whether a two-state solution is possible-and whether Zionism is even worth pursuing anymore."

It's about Jews showing other Jews what a terrible and misguided place Israel has become.

Despite its denials, the group has supported the boycotting of Israel on college campuses and targeted pro-Israel activists.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/j-street-israel-birth-right/

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