IfNotNow activists kicked off Birthright trip for asking about West Bank policies

A Birthright participant has said she and two others were kicked off the program recently after confronting their guides with questions about Israel’s control of the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians.

Emily Bloch of Boston writes in the Forward that questions about Israel’s West Bank security barrier while driving by it quickly escalated into an argument over the trip’s openness to alternative perspectives.

Bloch says, “Two hours later, I stood on a street corner in Tel Aviv with two other participants, watching our trip’s bus drive away without us.”

The trip’s leader told them that “we were no longer welcome on Birthright because our questions about the Occupation were making other participants uncomfortable.”

Bloch says she belongs to IfNotNow, a group of young American Jews who oppose Israel’s control over the West Bank which has been staging protests on Birthright tours.

In light of the growing phenomenon, Birthright recently updated its contract to say participants are banned from efforts to “hijack a discussion or create an unwarranted provocation.”

Birthright in a statement says: “When activists aggressively disrupt the experience of the other participants then, like in any organized group experience, we have to ask them to leave regardless of their agenda. Birthright Israel always welcomes participants’ views and questions, which are essential to the success of the experience, so long as they are shared in a constructive and respectful manner. We will not condone any coordinated plans to ruin the experience for others in order to promote a specific agenda.”