What kind of privilege flaunting nonsense is this: Mideast War Gets Jewish American Singles Ready to Fuck. How could anyone in their right mind go to Israel for the express purpose of getting laid (on some awkward Birthright-for-people-who-are-too-old trip, too)? What kind of insensitive program plans a fun trip to Israel and then when a war breaks out says “okay, we might have to stay in a different hotel or something, but we’re definitely still going”?
People are dying!
And don’t tell me I just don’t understand because I’m not Israeli, rockets are part of normal life in the Middle East, real Israelis just suck it up and go about their business. That’s a load of crap and you know it. Things are dangerous and not letting up, and the Iron Dome isn’t foolproof. But that’s beside the point—the point is, people are dying, and some privileged dorks are trying to get laid in the blood stained rubble. Doesn’t this strike you as horrifying? Or at the very least, gauche?
It’s like having a date in a cemetery, and even though there’s a funeral going on, you’re still going to make out, because hey, you didn’t know the dead guy, so what does it matter? It matters! It’s disrespectful!
Regardless of your Israel/Palestine politics, this is just embarrassing. Can’t these people get laid on their own effed up continent? Like, really?
There are so many layers to this horror. How out of touch could someone be to decide to go be a tourist in a war zone?
If someone had some important business in Israel, like a wedding or a mandatory rabbinical program or whatever, I could see it. If someone had some really intense research, if someone wanted to learn about the conflict in horrifying ways, if someone were a journalist, etc etc. There are so many other reasons that I could see as potentially legitimate, though not my choices. But a trip for the sole purpose of flirtation? No. Just, no.
And I get that they had already planned the trip. But still, when the rockets started flying, the people running the program should have had the decency to postpone things. Even if there were no actual threats to the safety of the participants, it’s still awful. It looks bad for J-Date, and, dare I say it, it’s bad for the Jews. It turns my stomach that no one involved with this trip had the heart to think of all the people wounded and dying and all the families grieving and think, “you know what? I’ll go some other time.”