Millennial challenge

Regarding “Are anti-Israel views in the US a disaster in the making?” Terra Incognita, June 29, pro-Palestinian interest groups bring thousands of young American visitors each year to visit refugee camps, provide them with educational seminars, and arrange for home stays with Palestinian families.

A number of these visitors return to their communities to engage in pro-Palestinian activism.

Many of theses activists have succeeded in influencing their peers especially on college campuses.

The political ascendancy of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is but an early example of the efforts by such pro-Palestinian activists to cultivate a cohort of young Americans who have succeeded in becoming elected officials.

Once in office they have the power to influence, even determine, government policy and funding.

Ocasio-Cortez and others who I am sure will follow are the fruit of the Muslim principle of “sumud,” patience combined with resilience. Invest in them now and wait...wait

Just as American Jews learned the technique of political lobbying whose apotheosis is AIPAC and help elect pro-Israeli candidates, pro-Palestinian interest groups are sure to continue to support a growing number of politicians who upon assuming elected office, whether at the municipal, county, state or federal level, will express their sympathy for the Palestinian cause with the vote they wield.

Some of these will undoubtedly have had participated in Palestinian-sponsored visits prior to entering politics. To combat this growing trend those responsible for our country’s public diplomacy need to offer a comparable Israeli alternative visit on a large-scale designed for up-and-coming public officials from Western ally countries while simultaneously loudly exposing Palestinian lies and half-truths about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that continue to delude so many millennials. ARDIE GELDMAN

Efrat