Israel Matzav

J Street's Birthright trip canceled

Almost as quickly as it appeared on the horizon, the J Street-sponsored Birthright trip to Israel has been canceled.

A Birthright official told Haaretz that about three months ago they were approached by “The Israel Experience”, one of the trip providers, with this idea, but said that they are not interested in trips dedicated to a specific political experience. “Since then we didn’t have any requests from them”, he said. “And then we saw to our astonishment the press release of J Street that they are “leading the trip” – there is no such thing in our practice. We had no direct contact with J Street, no formal request was submitted. If a trip organizer wants to organize a trip oriented on social justice they have to submit a proposal. And trips of political orientation are not accepted. When it happened in the past, we discontinued working with them. The idea of a “Political trip” is out of question, and you can’t sign up for a trip with an organization that is not the trip provider and the use of our logo – they didn’t ask us to use it. There is obviously some misunderstanding or miscommunication”.

With regard to the so-called AIPAC trip, “Capital to Capital”, the official said that “it’s like a political science class, to understand Israeli political structure. The trip runs for several years and is closely vetted to make sure that there is no political tilt”.

I'm pleased this trip has been canceled. I know some of you might be thinking that these people will not get to Israel otherwise, but I don't believe that. I believe going on a trip to Israel with J Street would likely make a person more pro-'Palestinian' than pro-Israel.

Labels: Birthright, J Street, pro-Israel pro-peace

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:47 PM