Breaking the Silence's activists and their adoring fans on the Left have been patting themselves on the back after several young Jewish women spontaneously abandoned their Birthright trip, within the framework of which they were in Israel. The women then joined a guided tour given by Breaking the Silence to learn from up close about the hidden reality, denied and silenced by the "Israeli occupation" they had heard nothing about in their entire lives. What would these women know about politics?
The sensitive souls of these conscientious young women, who had only dreamed of taking in the sights of their ancestral homeland, could not bear the "Zionist propaganda." At once, they rose up and deserted the organized Israel trip, but not before spontaneously delivering a speech for their followers on social media. It was in this manner that these Diaspora youth found themselves off the Zionist bus, backpack in tow, wandering around their criminal homeland. As fate would have it, at the very same moment, Breaking the Silence activists and a photographer for the left-wing Haaretz newspaper were standing on a nearby street corner, gathering adventurous tourists for a spontaneous tour beyond the mountains of darkness. Completely by chance, our embarrassed guests found new guides for their journey through the Holy Land: This was one small step for man, one giant leap for the end of the occupation.
OK, everybody, that's a wrap!
This is more or less the narrative Breaking the Silence is content to adopt. Judging from social media and the shows of support from leftist figures, the "base" is lapping it up. It's astounding how a sector that identifies with rationalism and secularism has started to believe in miracles. And it is even more amazing that the political camp obsessed with "fake news" has dedicated itself to such an outlandish item, full of holes, like a smitten schoolboy.
The desire to believe is in fact quite understandable. Breaking the Silence has combined the "coming of age" formula, in which an innocent youth leaves the fairy tale existence of his youth and enters the "real" world of adults, with the "Matrix" plotline, in which our hero discovers he is inhabiting an alternate reality. Breaking the Silence is the Morpheus in our story, pulling innocent youths from the Matrix bus of Zionist propaganda and affording them an authentic Birthright experience.
The supposed "red pill" offered by Breaking the Silence is meant to wake the complacent from their slumber and open their eyes to reality. To believe in the miracle of the Birthright bus is to laud yourself for being of sober mind and one of Morpheus' chosen, and not a member of the obedient and gullible herd. This is seemingly also what draws people to the organization, because who wouldn't want to feel and be perceived as smart?
Breaking the Silence wants us to believe that the young Birthright participants who followed their lead discovered the truth. But their feeble tale is the essence of their existence: a story that may possibly have a kernel of truth, but is largely a tall tale; a childish and idiotic prank at the expense of the educational enterprise at the heart of consensus; a simplistic division between "the truth we expose" to the "lie" told by all the rest – from the military to Birthright, itself; and a tired tactic to appeal to foreigners and deliberately disrupt Israel's public diplomacy efforts.
How are we to believe you, Breaking the Silence, when time and again you use falsehoods and exaggeration to sell us what you dare to call "the truth"?
