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Birthright Palestine
16 April 2008So, the Palestinians have noticed the success of the Birthright Israel program in getting young Jews excited in Israel and have launched their own program to “gather first-generation, western-born Palestinians (over the age of 18-years old) in their ancestral homeland, so that they can reunite and witness firsthand how their brethren are living under illegal Israeli military occupation.” According to their website (birthrightpalestine.com), the concept was created by the “Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies”. I don’t mind so much that Palestinian organizations are taking credit for the concepts that were though about by Jews and then adapted, but what I do worry about is the message that these kids will be getting. The PCNSS’s own website (pcnss.org) has in their symbol a map of a country that looks an awful lot like Israel - I’m guessing that this is the “Palestine” that they’re referring to.
So we’re going to jump to a conclusion here - these first generation non-Palestinians coming on their “Birthright” trip are NOT going to be taught about peace, tolerance and co-existence, and will likely be taught alot about “Israeli brutality”, the “illegal Israeli occupation”, etc. According to the birthrightpalestine.com website, the trip was “created to maintain Palestinian unity on an international level” and to “nurture relationships between participants of Palestinian ethnic
origin whom were born in different countries around the world”, with the hope of an exchange of ideas that will “possibly lead to a cohesive consensus on core issues of importance to the Palestinian Nation.”
Now, in the past we’ve been quite clear about our thoughts about the claim of “Palestinian Nationalism” - there is no Palestinian nation and there never was. The Arab Palestinian national movement began in the 1960s - before that, Arabs living in Palestine identified themselves as being South Syrian or simply as Arabs. In fact, before World War I, many of the Arab countries that exist now didn’t exist back then. Here’s a map:
So now, 100 years later, the Arabs who happened to live in “Palestine” when Jews began to move their, invent a nationalism that historically never existed and are using it as a cynical political tool. I expect this plan to run into some roadblocks, primarily getting people to come in the first place. To get to “Palestine”, the participants must fly into Tel Aviv, Israel, since there is no international airport in Palestine (for if there were, Israel would be in grave danger). In the FAQs on the site, the organizers site “security precautions” for not releasing a list of participants - surely the insinuation is that people participating have to be worried about their security from Israelis. They likely have a point - surely if a participant list was distributed ahead of time, Israel would get their hands on it and be able to investigate the participants before they land in Tel Aviv and deny entry to any with suspicious backgrounds.
Whatever the goal of “Birthright Palestine”, we don’t think it is going to be pushing for a two-state solution or a solution that leaves any Jewish presence in the Middle East. Surely peaceniks will love this concept, but will it bring about peace? Like everything the Palestinians do, that is unlikely.
As a follow-up to this story, we’d like to write about the “Palestine Center for National Strategic Studies”. Does anybody know anything about this organization and where it gets funding from?
Tags:Arab Muslim World , birthright palestine , Commentary , Israeli Technology , israeli security , land for peace , middle east maps
