"...Propaganda trips from Auschwitz to Israel, designed to convey that the alternative to the occupation of Palestine is death camps.."

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Rosenberg (another "self hating Jew") at TPM/ here

"... Of course, they weren't fascist, just brainwashed.....

Not long ago, I talked to a boy from LA who had taken one of those propaganda trips from Auschwitz to Israel, designed to convey that the alternative to maintaining the occupation is death camps....

So this is what pro-Israel advocacy has come to: turning kids into scaredy-cats.

Lots of luck with that, AIPAC & Co. Israel is the 4th strongest military power in the world. It has 200 nuclear bombs. It has an army of cool, tough, non-weepy soldiers -- many of whom look like Olympic athletes. And you are teaching victimhood.

No wonder the only way you get Jewish kids to line up behind Israel's current policies is by giving them free trips. But even that won't work if crying on cue is demanded.

There are plenty of things to cry about in this world. And Israel's self-destructive policies (and its treatment of the Palestinians) are among them. But, that isn't what the lobby is aiming for. Like the fundraising letters from AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee that clutter my mailbox, their goal is to convince the most secure Jewish community in history that they should be afraid, very afraid.

Here's a response from one young Jewish kid, Jason Serota, that appeared in the New York Times yesterday.

As a young American Jew, I can sympathize with those who feel that we don't have the connection with Israel that previous generations had. For our parents and grandparents, who lived in the shadow of the Holocaust, Israel -- the place and the idea -- was more of a necessity. For my generation, especially in the Northeast, anti-Semitism is rare and the Holocaust a history lesson.

Israel will always be a special, important place for me (I was a bar mitzvah at Masada), and I believe its existence is vital. At the end of the day, however, I am an American and a Jew, and I find I don't have much in common with Israelis, other than as Jews. My home is here, in the diaspora.

Jason Serota

Philadelphia

He is not scared. And he is certainly not weeping.

Posted by G, Z, or B at 5:23 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian