I just finished watching the live webcast of the Taglit-birthright israel Mega Event at Latrun. I’d forgotten just how exciting and inspiring the Mega Event experience is. What happens is that during each cycle of trips, an event is held where all birthright israel participants in Israel at the time come together in a hall or stadium and there are speeches and performances and dancing and singing. It’s an amazing experience. The most amazing part for me of the Mega Event that I attended in January of 2002 when I went on my Taglit-birthright israel trip was the experience of seeing young Jews amassed together… thousands of people my own age… from all over the world. From Russia, Austrailia, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Canada, all waving their respective countries’ flags, chanting their football cheers in their own languages and accents, showing their national pride… but at the same time waving the kachol v’lavan, the blue and white, singing together in Hebrew, showing another national pride, another national identity, a kinship that transcended our residential homes and linked us together. All of us are Jews. All of us are family. All of us are Israel.

I turned off the simulcast with tears in my eyes. I want to go back, I thought. I want to be there and feel that kinship, that sense of home. I understood once more the feeling that floods my heart everyday when I come to work and realize all over again that I’m here working with other Jews for the sake of other Jews to connect them to their birthright… which is not just about israel, it’s about national identity. It’s about unity. It’s about that kinship. It’s mishpocha, family. Every Jew has a right to that feeling of belonging. Even growing up in the alternate Jewish capital, Brooklyn NY, I never felt that before. Not in Hebrew school, not in shul, not at camp. It takes a trip to Israel. It takes seeing thousands of your kinsfolk of all different backgrounds, skin tones, languages, all sharing that common thread of peoplehood, knowing that we all came from the same place and finally, finally, here we are together again. It’s like standing again at Sinai.

Hitting the “home” icon on my browser I came to my customized Google front page. My eyes were assaulted by articles declaring Israel Missile Strike Kills 11 Palestinians, Injures 30 and Israel Denies Its Forces Killed Palestinian Family on Beach and similar reports variously mentioning and not mentioning Israel’s denial of responsibility.

And I am angry.

It’s hard to put this anger effectively into words. I’m angry at news agencies who willfully leave out details in order to make one side look good and one side look bad, though I know that this is an inevidability and that almost everyone (if not everyone) does it. I’m angry at the hypocrisy of the various Palestinian Authorities and “leaders” who dance and sing and praise God when they kill Jewish civilians and bewail the atrocity of every accidental civilian death brought down upon them by Israelis targeting the elements that target them. I’m angry that while the Palestinian groups all jump at the opportunity to claim responsibility for attacks in Israel, Israel investigates its own botches, and while her leaders may place the responsibility on the shoulders of the Palestinian leadership, they still express sorrow and do not celebrate innocent deaths.

Neither, though, does Israel routinely deny such botches. If Israel is responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians, the leadership generally owns up to it. This denial is atypical and as such, I’m more inclined to believe Israel than the Palestinians who can’t even keep their own house in order.

My support of Israel is not too popular these days among my peers and it’s easy for anyone opposing to say that I’ve been brainwashed and indoctrinated to be sympathetic to Israel. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough to make up my own mind, I’ve had forces pulling me in both directions my whole life. I have no reason to trust the Palestinian leadership or terrorist organizations who claim to speak for the people. I have no reason to sympathize with people who keep such groups in power. I have no reason to sympathize, for that matter, with any of the many Arab countries (and Iran) who boldly state their desires to see Israel destroyed and reclaimed into the vast Muslim empire.

This conflict is not about people and their homes. The refugees are pawns of the Islamist imperialists and while I may sympathize with their individual situations, I will never conceed to a Palestinian “right of return” anymore that I would demand a Jewish “right of return” to Baghdad, Tehran, Ghazni, or any of the other places in the middle east from whence Jews have been forcibly expelled or forced to flee.

Phew. Okay, I’m done.