An odyssey from Birthright to the BDS movement

Some young Jews on the Israel excursion program say a rah-rah atmosphere has turned them into harsh critics of the occupation.

By Naomi Darom

Sam Sussman’s tour of Masada started in a pretty standard way. It happened three years ago as part of the Taglit-Birthright program, which offers young Jews free 10-day trips to Israel. At Masada, 50 American students were on hand.
Sussman, a 24-year-old New Yorker, climbed to the top of the plateau and expected the requisite spiritual experience. But what struck him was the guide’s speech when the group reached the top — on the importance of Jewish lives.

According to Sussman, the tour guide said: “I have Italian neighbors I grew up next to, and they’re wonderful, but if I had to decide whether to save their lives or the life of one Jew, I would choose to save the Jew. If I had to decide to save 100 non-Jews or one Jew, I would choose the Jew.”
Sussman was studying political science at the time and went on the trip to learn about the Israeli-Arab conflict. But he says that over the 10-day tour this issue almost never came up. The group didn’t meet one Israeli Arab or Palestinian, and met maybe one or two Israelis who didn’t espouse right-wing views.

Sussman says he was particularly surprised by what he considered matter-of-fact racism. When he asked a guide about the conflict, he was told: “You know, the Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
In a gathering with soldiers — a high point of the trip — Sussman talked with a woman soldier about the Palestinians; she spoke mostly about her run-ins with them and about how they allegedly hate Jews. According to Sussman, when he asked if she had ever tried to talk to Arabs, she said: “I don’t understand, are you on the Arabs’ side?”

Birthright, for its part, calls itself an apolitical organization that’s neither right nor left.
After the program, Sussman went on a different trip to the West Bank, where he learned about arrests of children there. The group met a youth who had been arrested.
Sussman says he asked himself a hypothetical question. If the people on the Birthright trip discussed the issue with the Palestinian youth, would they be disturbed about how a country with so many admirable values could make such an arrest?
Sussman thus founded Extend, a program of five-day tours in the West Bank designed to round out the Birthright experience.

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http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.655627
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