Perspectives
So Perspectives is this trip that some Hillel chapters offer, targeted at non-Jewish student leaders. I’m Jewish and was not by any definition a student leader, but I somehow talked my way into the group.
The basic concept was kind of like a Birthright trip, but instead of just visiting Israel,1 we got to spend a few days getting bussed around the West Bank. (We went back every night to sleep safely within the Green Line, of course.) Most of the people we met and most of the activities we did were about Israeli-Palestinian history and the conflict.
Recall that everyone who wasn’t me was some kind of Berkeley student leader. The aim of the trip was to upset and bewilder these poor club presidents until they had no choice but to conclude that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Complex (“complex” was probably the most commonly spoken word on this trip), and thus scare them out of signing on to political campaigns that don’t recognize the Complexity of the conflict, like, say, to name a random example, BDS.
It was really all about convincing people not to support BDS.
I don’t think the trip organizers cared whether we came away from the trip with more sympathy for the Palestinians or less; the point was to confuse us with dueling histories and narratives and opinions until we felt like we couldn’t in good conscience take a stand. It was to educate us into feeling uneducated.
Oh, and we got to meet David Keyes, Netanyahu’s disgraced ex-spokesman. He was our guide’s college buddy and not yet disgraced at that time.
I also stopped in a few other places on this trip; see those photos.
