While reading your article about Birthright and Israel’s new law (“Travel Ban Law Roiling Birthright, Liberals,” May 5), I wondered why these young people even want to go to Israel. They have judged Israel and found it guilty of an illegal occupation. Are they going for the free trip or to proselytize their views to others? It would be better if they were provided books about the invasion and colonization of the Americas and Australia by European Christians or the invasions by Arab Muslims into North Africa, the Middle East and beyond. They should go to reservations and villages of American Indians throughout the Americas and of Aborigines in Australia. They should read up on the lack of human rights, women’s rights, gay rights and religious tolerance throughout the Arab/Muslim world.
These young people see Israel through the prism of demonization by the media and fellow students, with a total disregard of how the so-called occupation came about and the consequences of giving up the land.
They think they are righteous Jews. They are not. They have taken a complex issue and, as young people do, adopted simplistic answers that make them feel good and allow them to be part of the campus groups that deny Israel’s right to exist.
Silver Spring, Md.
