Criticism
The Birthright Israel program has been criticized for its pre-trip screening process. According to Salon.com, political opinions may be taken into account: "Potential candidates who are discovered to have a 'hidden agenda' are not allowed onto the trips". The example cited in the article focused on people who use the Birthright program to obtain free transportation to Israel, then leave the group to work with Palestinian groups. A 2006 Birthright participant felt her group leader was encouraging imbalanced political discussion by expressing his view as universal truth. Group discussions did not encourage political discussion. An article in The Nation claimed that Birthright invites travelers to "explore Israel without being force-fed ideology," but the author claimed the trips were ideological.
Birthright's response was that Jewish support of Israel should be an integral part of every Jew's identity, and its trips are administered by a variety of organizations that espouse widely divergent ideologies, "from secular to Orthodox, from outdoorsy to LGBT-friendly."
Read more about this topic: Birthright Israel
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