One of the more riveting and unexpected announcements of this year’s General Assembly (GA) of Jewish federations is that the Taglit-Birthright program has decided to merge with Birthright Unplugged and welcome Jewish and Palestinian youth together to return to their ethnic roots in the Holy Land. The group, to be renamed Birthright for All (Taglit Le’Kulanu), will adopt the slogan:
Israelis And Palestinians. Two People, One Future.
The new group is the inspiration of Youth Against Delegitimization (YAD), which is sponsored by the Jewish Council of North America (JCNA). YAD believes that the real way to ensure Israel’s legitimacy is by embracing its identity as a nation of Jews, Muslim and Christians. Hence the decision to add Palestinian youth and staff to the trips.
It is rumored that hedge fund titan and purported Israel-hater George Soros and Palestinian entrepreneur Sam Bahour engineered a coup, wresting control of Taglit from Sheldon Adelson and Michael Steinhardt, its current neocon funders. When Soros promised the board that he would triple funding and bring an extra 100,000 Diaspora Jewish youth to Israel, it voted to endorse the radical shift in the group’s mission.
The struggle for control of the group has initiated a free-for-all among other right wing funders, with a rumor that Dr. Irwin Mieskeit, noted bingo king and hospital reseller, is angry at the loss of Birthright as a re-education tool for Diaspora Jewish youth. He is rumored to be considering founding a competing group to be called, My Birthright Not Yours, which will only visit sites sacred to the settler movement. Included in this group’s tours will be paramilitary training, personal audiences with Mossad hitmen, briefings with IDF commandos preparing them for their next targeted killing assignment. Parents of tour participants will even be offered shares in Dr. Mieskeit’s real estate projects which are miraculously transforming East Jerusalem into a Jewish city once again.
In comments offered jointly to Arutz Sheva and New York Jewish Press, Mieskeit is reported to have said about the new group:
A bruch on them, we can never support this Birthright fraud nor an effort to bring a more balanced view of Israel. Who needs balance? We know right from wrong. We’re right, they’re wrong. With those Birthright shmegegees, the next thing you know they’ll be talking about Nakba and Palestinian suffering, wah, wah, wah. Crocodile tears. That’s what it is.
Look, let’s be honest. A little Holocaust trauma goes a long way when you’re trying to steal the land of another people. I’m not above making Jewish girls cry if it helps me buy the Shepherd Hotel for a song and a dance.
Birthright tours under the old regime were noted for making shidduchs and producing new Jewish couples to take their place proudly on the stage of Jewish history. Dr. Mieskeit invoked a hidden fear of many Jews thinking about sending their children on intimate tours with Palestinians:
We’ve already got enough Jews marrying out. Do we need those Palestinian boys shtupping our girls, knocking them up and producing little half-breed Jewrab babies?
Returning to Birthright for All–now, for the first time the program will be open to Palestinian youth as well, enabling them to rediscover their connections to the land of their forebears. Instead of avoiding the Territories as previous Birthright tours did religiously, the new tours will include travel throughout Israel and the Territories. In a first, the new Birthright proposes to visit both settlements and their next door neighbor Palestinian villages. While a Birthright for All spokesperson said that tour participants may help with the Palestinian olive harvest, insurance and legal liability will prevent any of the young people from participating in the pogroms sponsored by the settler youth.
Here is a statement from the new organization about its goals:
Taglit Lekulanu will introduce a more realistic perspective on Israel by exposing participants to both Jewish and Palestinian narratives. The trip will be open to Palestinian and Jewish Americans and staffed by both Jews and Palestinians.
The trip will bear witness to the occupation, spending a morning with MachsomWatch at West Bank checkpoints and taking tours around the Separation Wall and Hebron. There will also be meetings with Palestinian human rights activists and a visit to Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.
Inside Israel, meetings with IDF officers and Jewish Agency representatives will be complemented by meetings with Israeli anti-occupation activists and civil rights organizers struggling for equal rights for Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Participants will also visit unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev and learn about the social struggle of Arab Jews. And of course there will be time to explore Tel Aviv’s famed nightlife and shopping.
Make sure they tell ’em about all the real estate opportunities available in Jaffo through evicting poor Arabs from their run down apartments, tearing ’em down, and turning ’em into luxury condos for white Jews. This way they can realize their Zionist dreams of rebuilding the homeland while making a handsome profit at the expense of the lowly and downtrodden Arab usurpers. That oughta keep ’em comin’ back for more…
Note: Events related above may or may not take liberties with fact. They certainly bear a greater resemblance to truth, at least as I see it.
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Ah, Purim comes early this year, and even earlier this year at Tikun Olam (and the GA)…..
Man, that was just the analogy I was searching for in my final “note” but I didn’t think of Purim. That’s why we have real Jews like Jerry around, to remind us of our tradition when we need it most.
I knew it had to be something like that!
Well, I had fun w. my little hoax. Sorry if anyone was taken in (except for Jhornet & I’m not sorry he was taken in). One of the JVP folk in New Orleans said he too had fun giving an interview to a settler media outlet in which he valiantly maintained JVP’s Birthright for All hoax & I think they believed him!
is this real? if so, what great news.
Happy Purim (a bit early)!
How can anybody object to Unplugging Palestinians?-)
Great news, in theory. However, in practice, how many children will make it through customs? Sure, the Jewish children will be allowed into Israel but I’d be willing to make a wager that Palestinian children will be put right back planes.
I’m sure my friend who will soon be starting to do tours in Yad Vashem will be delighted to hear this. Perhaps I will finally participate in a Birthright group myself. I missed that opportunity as a soldier, unfortunately.
Judging by the number of words you wasted on the issue, and the footnote that wasn’t originally there last night
i assume that you actually believed this BS.
this would show us all how much time and efforts irresponsible bloggers are “devoting” to actually read the news prior to publishing “information” on their blogs.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. When I know I’ve gotten a rise out of you, then I know I’m hitting my target.
I believed you! and got really excited!
Boo.
I excitedly announced it to my entire family-in-law….on the eve (literally) of my oldest brother-in-law making aliyah……was happy that there was something to be pleased about – GAH. I’ll get you next time, Silverstein.
My most abject & profound apologies. I have a bit of the devil in me when I get on a tear with these hoax posts. And really JVP put me up to it because they first introduced the spoof, which I embellished upon.
Astonished but trustful in human capacity of chaging I swallowed it all until my inner bell started ringing by the name of Dr Mieskeit and his wikipedia entry.
Yeah, I thought that would be a pretty good clue to the hoax.
FYI,
An Israeli settler rag called us to confirm if the Taglit Lekulanu announcement is true. This is after we admitted it was a spoof. I paused, and said “Yes. First trip is next spring”. They have a really bad website, so it’s hard to tell if they printed it.