itrek gives an unapologetically pro-Israel version in a deeply nuanced conflict area
This spring, a group of University of Toronto law students will embark on a week-long trip to Israel under the auspices of the “itrek” tour company. Since its founding in 2012, New York-based itrek has organized tours for post-secondary students in selected fields, with the stated purpose of “introduc[ing] tomorrow’s leaders in business, law, and policy to Israel.” itrek’s law program, which will welcome approximately 30 of our classmates, describes itself as “a chance to see Israel’s democratic legal system in action.”
In other words, like Birthright, a not-for-profit organization that sponsors free trips to Israel for Jewish young adults, itrek is a pro-Israel propaganda exercise, albeit one that encourages participation from non-Jewish students. That it exists is not surprising; that a group of our friends and classmates—tomorrow’s Canadian leaders—are subjecting themselves to such propagandizing is disappointing. Whatever version of Israel’s “democratic legal system” they get, it will resemble nothing of what is actually occurring in Israel and in Occupied Palestine.
While each person’s decision to travel is ultimately their own, my hope is that this article will encourage prospective itrek participants to take a more critical look at Israel than the version presented by tour organizers. This comes at a particularly bad moment in the Israel-Palestine conflict, under the illiberal leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which further underscores how ill-advised this trip would be.
itrek’s problematic itinerary
itrek may promise a “non-partisan” and “multicultural” experience, but what it delivers is an unapologetically pro-Israel version of the region, its history, and current events. Frankly, some of the tour choices are mind-boggling.
For example, there’s a planned “Gaza Border Excursion”, presumably to gawk, through Israel’s “security” fence, at the two million Palestinians living in what Amnesty International describes as “a growing humanitarian crisis” caused by Israel’s “illegal air, land, and sea blockade”.
There are also “ATV rides on the Syrian border”. Law students should find this activity particularly egregious given that said “Syrian border” is, in fact, the illegally occupied Golan Heights. No country recognises Israel’s annexation of this territory (as Ultra Vires was going to press, President Donald Trump tweeted that the United States should acknowledge Israel’s claim of sovereignty over Golan). According to a recent article in Foreign Policy, the day-to-day lives of Syrians in the Golan are “characterized by systematic oppression and rampant discrimination.” U of T’s itrek participants should be aware that in joyriding across illegally occupied territory, they become complicit in Israel’s violations of international law.
Speaking of illegal occupation, it appears that the 2019 itrek trip will visit Occupied Palestine, specifically, Ramallah in the West Bank. While that might be an opportunity for learning and engagement with the victims of Israel’s occupation, colour me skeptical. According to the draft itinerary I’ve seen, after visiting Ramallah, the group will immediately depart for one of Israel’s many illegal settlements in the West Bank. At some point on the trip, U of T students will almost certainly meet with soldiers from the Israel Defence Forces, which has repeatedly been accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In its most recent annual report, Amnesty International, a London-based NGO, reported that “Israeli soldiers and police and Israel Security Agency officers have subjected Palestinian detainees, including children, to torture and other ill-treatment with impunity, particularly during arrest and interrogation. Reported methods included beatings, slapping, painful shackling, sleep deprivation, use of stress positions, and threats. No criminal investigations were opened into more than 1,000 complaints filed since 2001.”
What it means to visit Israel in 2019
Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and violations of the rule of law are real, contemporary concerns.
A full accounting of Israel’s violations of law, justice, and human rights would require more than the few column inches available here. However, it’s important for UV readers—and participants in itrek—to understand Israel’s recent and most egregious violations of fundamental norms of international law. These are the themes and events, all captured from merely the last twelve months, that should be on the minds of any visitor to Israel, especially those embarked on such an unabashedly pro-Israel tour like this one.
March 2018:
Shortly before U of T Law’s 2018 itrek trip, protests erupt in the Gaza strip, setting off a year of deadly violence in which Israeli soldiers kill 295 Palestinians, including 57 minors, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Amnesty International reports that according to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based NGO, “at least 10,000 others have been injured, including 1,849 children, 424 women, 115 paramedics and 115 journalists”.
B’Tselem, an Israel-based NGO, concludes that the deaths are “a direct result of Israel’s reckless open-fire policy, authorized by the government and the top military command, and backed by the judicial system.”
In that same period, Israeli soldiers shoot and kill thirteen Palestinians, including five minors, in response to incidents of stone-throwing. Israeli soldiers also falsely allege a separate incident of stone-throwing in an attempt to justify the illegal killing of Muhammad Habali, a 22-year-old with mental disabilities, who is shot in the head, from behind, by an Israeli soldier in the West Bank. Video footage later shows that Mr. Habali was not provoking the soldiers.
During the same year, Palestinians kill 14 Israelis, according to B’Tselem.
May 14, 2018:
An Israeli sniper shoots Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian, while the doctor is delivering emergency medicine to protesters in Gaza. Dr. Loubani tells CBC News that he was shot during a “lull” in the protest, and that he was wearing a high-visibility green medical outfit at the time. His shooting is part of a pattern of allegedly deliberate attacks on medics and doctors providing medical assistance to protesters in the Gaza Strip, culminating in the death of Razan al-Najjar (see below).
Israeli forces shoot nineteen medical staff that day, including Dr. Loubani, according to the doctor’s account. The Geneva Convention forbids firing on medical personnel; if medics were deliberately targeted, then Israeli soldiers would have committed a war crime.
In total, Israeli forces kill 59 Palestinians that day and injure 2,700, according to the CBC.
No Israelis are killed. One Israeli soldier is injured, according to The Guardian.
May 24, 2018:
Israel’s Supreme Court approves a government plan to demolish a Palestinian village, Khan al-Ahmar, located in the West Bank. This decision is one in a long line of court-sanctioned expulsions of legal residents for the sake of Israel’s illegal settlement expansion in Occupied Palestine.
The demolition is placed on hold in October 2018 in the face of a major global outcry. If Israel proceeds with its demolition, it would constitute a war crime, according to David Zonsheine, the chair of B’Tselem.
May 24, 2018:
The President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) assigns the “Situation in Palestine” to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber for “preliminary investigation”.
June 1, 2018:
An Israeli sniper kills 20-year-old Razan al-Najjar, a medic attempting to assist a wounded protester in Gaza. Ms. Al-Najjar, a volunteer emergency medical worker, was wearing a clearly-identifiable white paramedic’s vest at the time.
July 19, 2018:
Israel passes a highly controversial “nation-state” law giving Jews the “exclusive right to national self-determination” within Israel. The law is roundly condemned by world leaders as an attack on Palestinian statehood. Mr. Netanyahu recently doubled down on the law, stating that Israel is a “nation state only of the Jewish people” and “not a state of all its citizens”, effectively excluding Israel’s substantial Arab minority population.
February 28, 2019:
Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announces indictments against Mr. Netanyahu on charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. Mr. Mandelblit alleges Mr. Netanyahu received gifts for tax favours, and colluded with major news companies by passing laws harmful to their competitors, in exchange for favourable news coverage.
The same day that Mr. Netanyahu’s indictment is announced, a UN Independent Commission of Inquiry issues a scathing report on Israel’s actions during the 2018 Gaza protests. The report concludes that the killings of 189 Palestinian protesters, including thirty-five children, three “clearly marked paramedics”, and two “clearly marked journalists”, “may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
And now this: itrek goes to Israel
In the choice between itrek and no trek at all, no trek is the better option.
Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and violations of the rule of law are real, contemporary concerns. The above account is taken from just the last year and Israel’s long-standing illegal occupation and mistreatment of the Palestinian Territories dates back much further than that.
Speaking as a Jewish-Canadian who has visited Israel on multiple occasions and has family connections there, I’m not saying that students should avoid Israel simply because its military commits war crimes, or its current Prime Minister is a particularly egregious example of illiberal ideology (such a strict rule on travel would probably exclude a lot of countries!). It is possible to visit Israel, and I encourage my Jewish and non-Jewish friends to do so, but only on the right terms.
itrek, with its one-sided, shallow perspective on Israel, not to mention its facilitation of activities in the occupied territories, is possibly the worst organizer to entrust with that responsibility.
There are other options. The “pro peace” Israeli advocacy group, J Street, organizes more balanced Israel/Palestine tours, and you can always make your own way (obtaining a visa is relatively easy for Canadians).
That said, there’s always the option, especially for this year’s crop of itrekkers, for whom it’s never too late to back out of a bad deal, to not go, to not feed the Israeli propaganda machine, and to not pour dollars into the tourism industry. As much as I trust my fellow classmates to think critically and to be skeptical about what the propagandists foist on them, I don’t think itrek will offer them the opportunity to do so.
In the choice between itrek and no trek at all, no trek is the better option.
