 you are not immune to propaganda and trust me there is a lot out there but don't worry because i'm gonna teach you a little bit about it welcome back to boycott birthright and other free trips to israel our series where we have been following the birthright israel trip going on right now and exposing why it's actually just a whole bunch of propaganda this is day three of our series so if you haven't seen the last two videos definitely go check them out as usual we have our itinerary here from the taglet birthright website and we can see that birthright goers are visiting the golan heights today but the golan heights is part of syria i thought israel was occupying palestine yeah you're absolutely right the golan heights is a part of syria that israel also occupied in 1967 as you can see by this map here is the northern part of occupied palestine they're syria and this area right here is the golan heights the truth is that when you're a settler colonial state like israel and you're founded on violence and militarism you will always seek to steal more land and exile more people and palestinians are not the only ones that are affected by israel's violence and that's why this beautiful landscape of the golan heights was occupied by israel in 1967 and annexed in 1981 the un security council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the annexation of the golan heights because it was taken by force making it occupied territory under international law it's bad enough that israel stole this land from its rightful owners and now uses it for tourism purposes but what's even worse is that people who attend birthright are told that that land is their home and that they have a right to it a right given to them by birth while those who are actually born on that land have no agency over it tourism propaganda can flander the radar really easily when people don't know the history of the land that they're visiting and on birthright a lot of the people don't know though for israel it's a super easy step of just erasing the history and completely rebranding into something that's a lot more likable when people go on birthright what ends up happening is that they attach these really great memories that they made on the trip to places like syria and palestine where israel has committed still commits horrible atrocities not only that but birthright is heavily marketed as one of the core experiences for a jewish person's identity and this attachment is very deliberate because once something becomes part of your identity it's very difficult to challenge it now pair that with the fact that people who go on birthright actually do visit israel and syria this gives them a sense of authority to speak on the narrative of these regions because they've actually been there when in reality they haven't even come close to experiencing witnessing or even learning about the reality of that land and what happened to the people who are indigenous to this is sort of israel's formula when it comes to these propaganda trips because they know that now it's going to be very very hard to change these people's minds about israel they don't visit the west bank or gaza which would very clearly reveal the reality of the occupation they have a great time and they're told that's a crucial part of their identity these people are fed nothing but propaganda and therefore israel's mission is complete and that's why you need to boycott birthright and any free trip to israel we know that there is no way to challenge the occupation by going on one of these trips and that's why the only solution is to boycott them entirely and if you want to learn more about the harmful effects of birthright join us for a webinar on june 15th at 6 30 p.m central and keep following along with the series