An opinion piece for Galusaustralis.

In July, Coteret, an Israeli news site, reported that Australian young people were taken on a tour of central Hebron by Birthright/Talglit, a program that has brought hundreds of thousands of young Jews to Israel. The video featured interviews with some of the participants and an Orthodox, American organiser. The tour was run by Chabad, who have a long history in Hebron, in conjunction with Israel Express and the Zionist Federation of Australia.

The video, which is still available on Coteret even though it was removed from it’s original source at WeJew.com, probably when it twigged that the visit was controversial, is particularly scary because of the naïveté of the young people – who think they are in Israel. The interviewer and organiser share a pumped up view of eternal rights in Hebron, despite the reality of extraordinary injustice to others to achieve this. I’d love my son to go on ‘Birthright’, but not on such propaganda tours that dehumanize Palestinians.

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