Neither slumber nor sleep

The article “Left-wing NGO crashes Birthright group to spread anti-occupation info,” June 28, highlighted an extremely serious growing phenomenon.

IfNotNow has heretofore specialized in picketing national Jewish organization headquarters and meetings. In its obsessive fixation on a (nonexistent) “occupation,” it ignores very real Israeli security concerns, and the Palestinians’ own agency in perpetuating their circumstances.

Above all, in rejecting the legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish Mideast state, their refusal to entertain Israel’s repeated peace offers.

Recently, IfNotNow has trained Jewish summer camp counselors in techniques towards sneakily subjecting unsuspecting campers to such views.

Activists have accosted Birthright participants at JFK airport as they prepare to board flights to Israel. Going beyond even that, it has evidently succeeded in embedding activists into arriving groups.

Such surreptitious subversions are absolutely intolerable. They need to be vigorously countered, with enhanced vetting and much closer supervision. Zero tolerance should be shown to violators.

American-Jewish youth are now seriously at risk. Whether it be anti-Israel curricula, from elementary to graduate school, harassment and intimidation on campuses, infiltration of youth groups, summer camps, and, now, Birthright cohorts, there no longer are any boundaries.

The enemies of Israel neither slumber nor sleep. It’s time for the Jewish community to wake up to such rising insidious dangers. RICHARD D. WILKINS Syracuse, New York