Surprised by NY Times’ Partisan Reporting on J Street's Birthright Alternative Tour? - by Emanuel Miller

J Street’s tours may or may not be worthy of coverage, but in publishing a piece devoid of context and piercing questions, the New York Times is acting as a shill for those who spend their time highlighting Israel’s every flaw.

Emanuel Miller..
Honest Reporting..
14 July '19..

Ever wondered how fringe organizations like IfNotNow and Breaking the Silence wield so much influence on the public discourse on Israel?

It’s not because these organizations are well-financed or organized, although that certainly helps. It’s because these organizations are set up primarily to create catchy, often-sensationalized media narratives about injustices which are packaged neatly for enthusiastic and ignorant journalists to write about. Oppression, segregation, colonialism, and collective punishment are the name of their game.

For the unacquainted, Birthright is a free trip to Israel sponsored in part by the Israeli government, and in part by private donors, to young men and women of Jewish heritage. The trip is largely apolitical, and endeavors to provide Jewish youth with an opportunity to connect with their roots, learn about the Jewish people, and visit a country with undeniable ties to their Judaism. Despite being as mainstream and apolitical as could be, the organization has come under fire from some who demand that it tackle Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians in greater detail, with the two aforementioned organizations hijacking multiple Birthright tours to score political points and make headlines in 2018.

One year later, another American Jewish organization catering to a left-leaning audience, the self-described “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” J Street, has launched its own version of the famous free trip to Israel. In keeping with J Street’s political agenda, this tour puts Israel’s actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians under the spotlight.

J Street has every right to its own tour of Israel, even if the move is provocative. New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger, however, owes the public a better account of the tour than the one made in the July 10 edition the New York Times, entitled “Absorbing a Different Slice of a Jewish Birthright – An Unflinching View Of Israeli Occupation.”

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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How One Sentence From a NY Times Letter About Birthright Israel Packs In Three Inaccuracies - by Ira Stoll

A Times defender might take the position that it is Asaf, rather than the Times itself, that is to blame for the inaccuracy. But surely the Times has at least some responsibility for the letters it chooses to publish. It receives many more letters than it prints, and it easily could have chosen not to publish this particular letter, or at least to edit it so that it is accurate. If the Times isn’t going to police the letters column at all, there’ll be no end to people sneaking false claims into the newspaper by that method — as seems to have happened here.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner..
18 June '19..

A front-page New York Times article earlier this month about Birthright Israel problematically echoed the “Zionism is racism” myth. Now the Times has compounded the error by publishing a letter to the editor that includes a false claim about the program.

The Times-published letter to the editor claims, inaccurately, “Birthright is funded mainly by Donald Trump’s biggest donor, Sheldon Adelson.”

Leave it to The New York Times to manage the extraordinary feat of packing three inaccuracies into a single 11-word sentence, but there it is.

First, the reference to “Sheldon Adelson” omits Dr. Miriam Adelson, Sheldon’s spouse and his partner in philanthropy. Ignoring a woman is often correctly defined as sexism. When The Algemeiner reported last year that Sheldon and Miriam Adelson had announced a $70 million gift to Birthright in honor of Israel’s 70th birthday, bringing their total contributions to Birthright to $410 million, we correctly identified both of them as the donors.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Introducing J Street's ‘Birthwrong’ project - by Stephen M. Flatow

...So by all means, J Street leaders, bring your students to Palestinian cities. They might actually learn some of the painful facts that you keep hidden from them.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
14 March '19..

J Street thinks that “Birthright” trips are too pro-Israel. So it has announced that it is launching some trips of its own. Perhaps they should be called “Birthwrong” since their purpose is to convince young American Jews that Israel is wrong and the Palestinian Authority is right on pretty much every issue.

Jewish control of united Jerusalem? Israel is wrong, J Street says; the city should be re-divided, with the eastern portion turned into the capital of “Palestine.”

Allowing Jews to build homes in Judea-Samaria, just as Arabs do? Israel is wrong about that, too, says J Street; those territories should be Arab-only.

And opposing the P.A.’s payments to terrorists? Wrong again, according to J Street; complaining about pay-for-slay could “harm the peace process.”

Israel is wrong, wrong, wrong. And the Palestinian Authority is always right, which is why J Street never criticizes it.

Despite all this, there actually might be some value in the Birthwrong trips. Here’s why.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The true face of If Not Now - by Ophir Dayan

...the pattern of behavior of If Not Now reflects a far more serious problem in American public discourse. While the organization's activists are purportedly committed to an open and tolerant society in which people of different opinions can voice their positions, in practice, they loudly impose their views on others. They rob those who have an opposing view or who have yet to consolidate their views of the right to learn and express themselves. In doing so, they reveal the limits of their tolerance: They are in favor of a pluralistic and open society for all but those who disagree with them.

Ophir Dayan..
Israel Hayom..
23 January '19..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-true-face-of-if-not-now/

A new group of young American Jews has come into our lives, one that goes by the name of If Not Now. Members of the organization made headlines when they were supposedly thrown off a Taglit-Birthright trip to Israel for asking questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But these were not young people whose natural curiosity was spontaneously piqued on a trip to Israel, rather activists who belong to a radical organization sent specifically on Birthright trips to disrupt them. These are not even young people who support the two-state solution, but political activists who refuse, both as individuals and on an organizational level, to declare their support for Israel's right to exist with or without Judea and Samaria.

The problem, of course, is not the raising of questions, a legitimate activity in any discussion that takes place inside a democratic and diverse society, but the callous exploitation at the expense of program participants of the framework of a particular activity to promote their ideas.

There are dozens of left-wing, Israeli and American, Jewish and non-Jewish organizations that offer tours of Israel that reflect If Not Now's worldview. I am confident that none of the activists who snuck onto the Birthright tour would have had a problem joining any of them. These activists knowingly showed up for a trip that does not reflect their positions and does not focus on the issues to which they wanted to draw attention. They not only exploited the generosity of the donors who fund Birthright but prevented other young people, who were interested in connecting to their Jewish identity and learning about the State of Israel, from having the opportunity to do so as they saw fit.

Israel, Questions of Identity and Birthright - by Liat Collins

...Ra’anan Shaked is one of those satire and comedy writers who themselves become a parody and a (bad) joke. There’s a one-word answer to the question why Jews – of different religious streams and political ideology – leave comfortable lives to move to Israel, where they usually earn less, downsize housing and cars, and periodically come under rocket attacks or yet another wave of terrorism. It’s called Zionism. It’s not a rude word – but it is a defining one.

Taglit-Birthright Israel mega event in
Jerusalem on January 1.
(photo credit: Jane Peimer)

Liat Collins..
JPost..
11 January '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Questions-of-identity-and-Birthright-577027

It wasn’t the $60-million question and it wasn’t a question of a zero-sum game, but the phrasing riled me. I recently participated in a panel at Limmud UK with the title: “Is the Israeli government doing enough to promote the peace process with the Palestinians?” In accordance with a longstanding Jewish tradition, I answered the question with a question: “Shouldn’t we be asking what the Palestinians are doing to promote peace – or even stability or economic viability?”

I have been asked variations on this theme regularly in recent years and I have come to the conclusion that it embodies two significant problems: The first, that the onus for somehow creating peace lies only on Israel and the second, that the conflict with the Palestinians should be what defines Israel.

The peace process, such that it ever was, is obviously stuck, but it is wrong to place all the blame for that on Israel, whichever government is in power.

During the election period, the question of security is usually high on the agenda, but Israel, at 70-plus, like most normal countries, also has other things on its collective mind. There are a lot of social issues to deal with – the widening socioeconomic gaps, a medical system that is not working as well as it once did, tension and division between different sectors.

At least we are holding elections. Democratic ones. Those urging Israel to reach an agreement with Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas are willing to ignore the fact that the 83-year-old PA president was elected to a four-year term this week – 14 years ago. It literally doesn’t add up to democracy.

Similarly, despite his age and poor health, Abbas has appointed no apparent heir, leaving the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians wondering who will come next. The “two-state or one-state” mantra has been out of date for years. While Abbas’s Fatah movement continues to clasp on to power in the West Bank, its archrival, Hamas, is in control of Gaza. The two-state solution is already a three-state solution; four, if you count Jordan, where there is a Palestinian majority.

The international obsession with the Palestinian narrative has done nothing to bring about peace. On the contrary. Every time pressure is put on Israel to reach an agreement, the Palestinians feel they can sit back and enjoy. Until it all blows up.

Surprise! J Street embraces an Israeli settlement - by Stephen M. Flatow

Last week, J Street’s campus division, J Street U, mobilized 575 Jewish students to write a letter to Taglit-Birthright Israel, demanding that it refuse to cooperate with Israeli law. The letter demands that Birthright refrain from any screening of applicants for its trips to Israel to determine if they are BDS activists. Or, to put it another way, J Street wants BDS promoters to be able to exploit Birthright and gain access to Israel under its cloak, so they can avoid being caught by the Israeli border authorities. Then, this gets really interesting.

Credit: Flash90

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
26 April '17..

J Street, the left-wing group that claims to be staunchly opposed to Israeli settlements, has embraced an Israeli settlement.

What? How can that be?

This strange but true story began when the Israeli Knesset overwhelmingly adopted a law to prohibit the entry of foreign citizens who actively promote the BDS movement against Israel. The law does not prevent Israeli citizens from boycotting Israel. Their right to seek the destruction of their own country remains protected. The law does not block the entry of foreigners who happen to agree with BDS. Their right to believe what they want to believe—and still enter Israel—remains intact. The new legislation keeps out people who actively seek to undermine Israel.

For some reason, that was too much for J Street, which claims to be “pro-Israel.” For some reason, J Street, which claims it does not support BDS, wants Israel to open its doors to BDS organizers.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Defying Logic with an Absurd Attack on Birthright, Adelson, and Jewish Identity

...All of which makes this op-ed in Haaretz among the most asinine, self-defeating columns in recent memory–an impressive feat, since the competition for such distinction in Haaretz alone is vigorous.

Seth Mandel..
Commentary/Contentions..
23 My '13..

Several years ago, a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office visited U.S. chapters of the Jewish Federations of North America to talk to American Jews about their relationship to Israel. In a press avail, I had asked him what was Israel’s single greatest need from Diaspora Jewry. His response, which is always the response to that question, was: them. That is, what Israel wanted most from American Jews was for American Jews to move to Israel. Aliyah is the lifeblood of the Jewish state, as Israeli officials commonly and persistently phrase it.

Immigration has been a great economic and cultural blessing to the State of Israel. And so has tourism from abroad, which generates billions a year in revenue, much of which helps pay the salaries of workers at the lower end of the economic spectrum who work in industries that depend on tourism to survive. American Jews’ engagement with and connection to Israel is thus vital to maintain, not only for economic reasons but also to ensure international support for Israel and push back against the Jewish state’s isolation.

All of which makes this op-ed in Haaretz among the most asinine, self-defeating columns in recent memory–an impressive feat, since the competition for such distinction in Haaretz alone is vigorous.

There are few things that bother the Western press more than wealthy people and national or religious pride. So you can imagine the outrage when Sheldon Adelson, the wealthy Jewish philanthropist and funder of Birthright Israel, a program to provide trips to Israel for young Jews, met with Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid to request that Israel not slash funding for the program. Haaretz’s Itay Ziv fumes:

A slanderous swamp that engulfs "all the news that's fit to print."

...And that may be Adelson's biggest sin, in the anti-Zionist eyes of the Times. Birthright is perhaps the most successful antidote to a rising tide of assimilation among young American Jews. Adelson has contributed tens of millions of dollars to Birthright so as to give young Jews who have never visited Israel a chance to see the Jewish state for themselves.

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
21 May '13..

When it comes to political labels to describe public figures, the New York Times has a vocabulary all its own -- pejorative adjectives for conservatives; soft, deferential adjectives for liberals. It's all part and parcel of a left-wing bias in what purport to be the paper's "news" articles.

To wit, the latest example:

In its May 20 edition, the Times runs an article by Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren about the ups and downs of Yair Lapid, a charismatic newcomer to Israeli politics, whose political star crested when voters made his party the second largest in the Knesset, but whose star more recently has been on a precipitous decline ("Fresh Israeli Face Plays Down Dimming of Political Star" page A4).

Why has Lapid's popularity gone south, aside from the fact that as finance minister in the governing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he is pushing an austerity drive of raising taxes while cutting spending?

"One of the things that led some people to turn on Mr. Lapid was the revelation that he met in April with Sheldon Adelson, the ultraconservative financier who backs Mr. Netanyahu and owns the Israeli Hayom newspaper that loyally supports him," Rudoren tells Times readers.

In this single sentence, intentionally or not, Rudoren reveals the depth of the Times' anti-conservative, anti-Zionist intrusion into its news sections.

Lapid meeting with Adelson? Talk about guilt by association. Because, as far as Rudoren is concerned, Adelson doesn't belong in polite society. After all, horror of horrors, Adelson is an "ultra-conservative."

(Video) Birthright Israel Trip 2012 - Culinary Taglit

birthrightisrael..
May '12..

Taglit-Birthright is now celebrating its 13th year of bringing hundreds of thousands of young Jewish adults from 59 countries, for their initial visit to Israel and providing them with an unique experience, including in many cases customized programs. This video follows participants of a Taglit-Birthright Israel niche culinary trip to Israel as they get to cook and bake in a delicious tour of Israel. During their trip, they visited three IDF bases in the Negev, where they prepared a gourmet three-course meal for the IDF soldiers. Absolutely no question that there are smiles all around. Enjoy!




Learn more by visiting http://www.birthrightisrael.com/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

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Fresnozionism - Inside the Birthright protesters

Kiera Feldman, smelling and looking
expensive (her words), interrupts
Steven Pease, who looks on
bemused in the background

Fresnozionism.org
14 November '11

Yesterday I wrote about how a Birthright reunion in New York was disrupted by anti-Israel demonstrators. If you haven’t seen the video, watch it now. Far more unsettling than the accusations they hurled at Israel — by now I’m used to the lies and expressions of hatred that accompany such protests — was the combination of robotic “mic check” chanting along with the expressions of glee, even laughter, from the antisemitic — yes, I said antisemitic, and I will support this — activists, as they interrupted a talk by author Steven Pease, doing their best to impose their totalitarian vision of what may and may not be heard on the audience.

So who were they? They were members of “Young, Jewish, and Proud” (YJP), the “youth wing” of the Jewish Voice for Peace organization, the only Jewish organization to make the ADL’s list of the top ten anti-Israel groups in the nation.

As I mentioned yesterday, the male speaker in the video is Max Blumenthal, left-wing ‘journalist’ and videographer who is known for baiting pleasant evangelical Protestants and drunken students. Blumenthal has been responsible for some vicious anti-Israel slanders, including an incredible 2010 article which asserted that the use of deadly force on the Mavi Marmara was planned and intended in advance, in order “to lift the morale of the Israeli public while intimidating Iran and the Arab world.”

The first female speaker was Kiera Feldman, who wrote a snarky piece in The Nation about her own Birthright trip, suggesting that the main idea was “promotion … of flings among participants, or between participants and [Israeli] soldiers” as a form of Zionist mind control. Birthright sponsors admitted to her that bringing together young Jewish people tends to encourage marriage between Jews, which they think is a good thing (Feldman apparently doesn’t).

Elder - "Birthright" criticized in The Nation

Elder of Ziyon
16 June '11

Kiera Feldman writes an article criticizing Birthright Israel in The Nation. Excerpts:

The seekers are young, just beginning to face the disappointments of adulthood. Their journey is often marked by tears. They may weep while praying at the Western Wall, their heads pressed against the weathered stone, or at the Holocaust Museum, as they pass the piles of shoes of the dead. Others tear up in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery, while embracing a handsome IDF soldier in the late afternoon light. But at some point during their all-expenses-paid ten-day trip to a land where, as they are constantly reminded, every mountain and valley is inscribed with 5,000 years of their people’s history, the moment almost always comes.

When Julie Feldman (no relation), then 26 and a Reform Jew from New York City, arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in December 2008, she called herself “a blank slate.” She returned as the attack on Gaza was under way, armed with a new “pro-Israel” outlook. “Israel really changed me,” she said. “I truly felt when I came back that I was a different person.”

It was mission accomplished for Birthright Israel, the American Zionist organization that has, since its founding in 1999, spent almost $600 million to send more than 260,000 young diaspora Jews on free vacations to the Holy Land.

(Read full "Birthright" criticized in The Nation")

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Better late than never.

Marc Prowisor
Yesha Views
03 March '11

http://yeshaviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/better-late-than-never.html

Taking Back Zionism…that’s what the party was called. It was put on by Birthright Israel Alumni in the beginning of February in New York. The party and the concept sound great!

"[W]e have handed over the word [Zionism] to those who attack and distort it." ~ Rebecca Sugar, Birthright Alumni Director on February 1, 2011.

"Contemporary discourse seeks to narrowly define Zionism and attack it by limiting its scope," campaign organizers wrote on the website. "We refuse to accept others' definitions and misrepresentations. We seek to Take Back Zionism and define it in our own terms, as a young generation who loves Israel."

Wow! Them’s fightin’ words! I have some questions first… Who took Zionism away from you? Who did you hand it to and why?

The way I understand part of the statement is that there is a wish to make Jews Zionists again and redefine it into terms for a younger generation who do not know what Zionism is and who loves Israel.

Again…wow! Shai Baitel (Bet El?) defined it nicely; “Zionism is the legitimate aspiration of the Jewish people to live in peace in their own country. At the beginning it was an almost romantic but pained longing for Zion, for Jerusalem and today it is the continuing effort to building the future of Israel. People from all walks of life and political convictions came together to work on the Jewish national project. Zionism was the national project, the impetus, the driving force to create the State of Israel.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but that seems to provide and understandable and appropriate definition to me, and probably to most others who believe in the Jewish State of Israel.

I agree that this meaning has been lost to so many, and the concept is foreign to many Jews outside of Israel -and even to some in Israel. So if there is a redefinition needed, this is going to take some serious R&D, especially regarding Israel and the Jewish people today.

Those who “attack and distort” Zionism today include pretty much all of the Arab nations and the majority of the Arab people, much of the Muslim population of the world, the majority of Europeans, many others and I am sorry to say, many Jewish people today.

J Street lays a trap for Birthright

Fresnozionism.org
01 February '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/02/j-street-lays-a-trap-for-birthright/

J Street’s recent attempt to slime Taglit-Birthright shows yet again that J Street is nothing more than a Trojan Horse intended to sabotage American Jewish support for Israel.

Birthright is an organization that provides free trips to Israel for young people from 18-27 years old, on the premise that nothing creates understanding and connection better than personal experience.

It’s been wildly successful, perhaps showing that the much-remarked lack of connection to Israel among young American Jews is due more to the suffusion of colleges and universities by anti-Israel propaganda than to Israel’s illiberal tendencies, as Peter Beinart has alleged.

J Street’s campus arm, J Street U, announced that they would be leading a Birthright tour with a difference. It would be called “Explore Israel: Progressive Zionism and Social Justice.” It would be “from a perspective that acknowledges your Jewish and progressive values,” and would help participants discover “the full contours of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” by meeting with “members of Israeli civil society working to advance the goals of democracy and human rights.”

In other words, J Street U would use the resources of Birthright to indoctrinate students with their brand of anti-Israel politics. And it’s not just theoretical — J Street U has organized Jewish students to join left-wing protests in Israel.

The announcement prompted inquiries to Birthright, which responded that no such tour had been approved. But J Street U pressed the matter, claiming that Birthright had ‘canceled’ their planned tour. And then J Street’s director, the serial liar Jeremy Ben Ami weighed in to suggest that the tour was killed for political reasons.

But Birthright never received a formal proposal and the trip was never approved at all:

Action alert: Don’t let J Street exploit Birthright

Fresnozionism.org
26 January '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/01/action-alert-dont-let-j-street-exploit-birthright/

No program has been more effective in creating Zionist consciousness in Jewish young people than Birthright. Israel really is a vital, democratic, modern and generally cool place, so sending kids there for ten days for free is the best way to arm them against the barrage of anti-Israel propaganda they face at college or among their ‘progressive’ friends.

So naturally this had to happen:

J Street U is very happy to announce that we will be leading a free, ten-day Taglit-Birthright trip this summer titled, “Explore Israel: Progressive Zionism and Social Justice.”

This trip is an incredible opportunity to connect with the Israel that isn’t on the front page or in the guide books. Move beyond the headlines, and see what’s really happening on the ground…

The trip is a chance to appreciate the vibrancy of Israel’s history, culture and landscape from a perspective that acknowledges your Jewish and progressive values.

The best way to discover the richness of Israeli society and the full contours of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to travel around Israel and meet people from the diverse groups of the region. There is simply no substitute for seeing the land and connecting with the people.

On the trip, we’ll speak with members of Israeli civil society working to advance the goals of democracy and human rights. Our itinerary will provide a cross-section of Israeli opinion.

This trip is a gift of Taglit-Birthright Israel and will be provided by The Israel Experience, Ltd. — J Street press release (my emphasis)

In other words, the phony ‘pro-Israel’ organization J Street, a group that takes money from people associated with Saudi Arabia, the Arab-American institute, Iranian interests, anti-Israel billionaire George Soros, a mysterious woman associated with the guy who beat the Hong Kong horse-racing track, and the Turkish producer of anti-Israel propaganda films; whose co-founder called the creation of Israel ‘an act that was wrong’; and which facilitated meetings between members of Congress and Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the notorious Goldstone report that accused Israel of deliberately murdering civilians in the Gaza war — this organization has the chutzpah to use funds provided by Taglit-Birthright to sabotage its purpose!

J Street U, the campus branch of J Street which will be guiding the students on this trip, stopped calling itself ‘pro-Israel’ because

“We don’t want to isolate people because they don’t feel quite so comfortable with ‘pro-Israel,’ so we say ‘pro-peace,’” said American University junior Lauren Barr of the “J Street U” slogan, “but behind that is ‘pro-Israel.’”

Barr, secretary of the J Street U student board that decided the slogan’s terminology, explained that on campus, “people feel alienated when the conversation revolves around a connection to Israel only, because people feel connected to Palestine, people feel connected to social justice, people feel connected to the Middle East…”

What is J Street U? Its National Board President U is a Middlebury College student named Moriel Rothman. Here is how he explains the controversy around the Sheik Jarrah / Shimon haTzadik neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Pay attention not only to his words, but his tone:

…the Jerusalem municipality has been bending to the will of fanatic Jewish settlers, and producing -based on archaic documents from the Ottoman period and manufactured Israeli law- eviction notices to a number of Palestinian families, and in some cases -such as with three families in Sheikh Jarrah- acting on those eviction notices by force and removing those Palestinian families from their homes. The municipality’s actions are hugely problematic from a moral standpoint: not only are Jews buying up and/or stealing Arab land in East Jerusalem, but Arabs are moreover unable to buy land in the primarily Jewish West Jerusalem… These policies are also hugely problematic from the standpoint of peace, as East Jerusalem must be the capital of the future Palestinian state, and the Clinton Parameters, which state that Palestine will get control of Arab neighborhoods and Israel will control Jewish neighborhoods, are made harder and harder to implement with each infiltration of Jewish settlers into Arab neighborhoods like Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah.

This is what they call “progressive Zionism!” If you ask me, it has ‘progressed’ to the point that it can’t be distinguished from Arab propaganda — Ali Abunimah could have written that paragraph.

Now I am not saying that, distasteful as it is, an anti-Zionist organization like J Street U can be prevented from leading a trip to Israel in which young people will meet various Jewish left-wing extremists and Arab anti-Zionists, perhaps participate in a demonstration or two, and in general see the country through the eyes of those who hate it.

But I think it is highly inappropriate that funds that have been given to Taglit-Birthright by Zionists like me and by Israeli taxpayers should be used to pay for it!

So I suggest that you contact Birthright — you can email them at information@birthrightisrael.com and ask them if they think that the anti-Zionist organization J Street U should be allowed to lead a Birthright trip.

Birthright works through ‘trip providers’ like The Israel Experience Ltd, in Israel — a subsidiary of the Jewish Agency. You can email the Deputy Director-General of TIE, Eran Applebaum at eranap@israelexperience.org.il, and ask him if he thinks his organization should be helping J Street to damage Israel.

Do it now. I have, and I’ll report on any results.

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