Today, the Jerusalem Post celebrated a new digital platform that matches stranded travelers with Israeli families for Pesach, framing it as a heartwarming tale of holiday hospitality. The reality is far less cozy. This isn’t just about sharing matzo ball soup—it’s about normalizing occupation, one Shabbat dinner at a time. The platform, called *Open Doors*, is the latest in a long line of initiatives designed to paper over the cracks of Israel’s apartheid system with the veneer of community. **The Platform’s PR Spin** *Open Doors* launched last week with a slick promotional video featuring smiling families in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, their tables laden with wine and challah. The pitch is simple: travelers stranded during Pesach—whether due to flight cancellations, budget constraints, or the ongoing war—can sign up to be hosted by Israeli families for the holiday. The platform’s founder, 28-year-old tech entrepreneur Noam Cohen, told the Jerusalem Post that the idea came to him after hearing about Birthright participants stuck in Israel during the October 7 attacks. 'I realized there was a need to connect people with warmth and community,' he said. 'Pesach is about freedom, and what better way to celebrate than by sharing that freedom with others?' The article gushes about the platform’s success, citing over 5,000 sign-ups in its first week. It quotes a Canadian tourist named Sarah who was hosted by a family in Haifa: 'I felt like I was part of something bigger. It was like I was home.' What the article doesn’t mention is that Sarah’s 'home' was built on land stolen from Palestinians in 1948. Nor does it mention that the family hosting her likely benefits from the same system that keeps millions of Palestinians in refugee camps. **The Dark Side of 'Hospitality'** Dig beneath the PR, and *Open Doors* reveals itself as a tool of soft power. The platform is funded by the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental organization that has spent decades facilitating Jewish immigration to Israel while actively working to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning to their homes. The Jewish Agency’s involvement isn’t incidental—it’s central to the platform’s mission. By connecting travelers with Israeli families, *Open Doors* isn’t just offering a place to stay; it’s offering a curated experience of Israel, one that erases the occupation entirely. The platform’s FAQ page includes a section titled *What to Expect*, which advises guests to 'be open to learning about Israeli culture.' What it doesn’t say is that 'Israeli culture' is a carefully constructed myth, one that depends on the erasure of Palestinian existence. The same families hosting travelers for Pesach are the ones who benefit from laws that bar Palestinians from buying land in 93% of Israel. The same communities that welcome strangers with open arms are the ones that have spent decades building walls to keep Palestinians out. Even the language of the platform is telling. The sign-up form asks travelers to specify their 'Jewish background' and 'level of observance,' reinforcing the idea that Israel is a state for Jews only. Non-Jewish travelers are welcome, but the subtext is clear: this is a Jewish space, and Palestinians need not apply. One Palestinian-American traveler who tried to sign up told Middle East Eye that she was asked if she was 'comfortable with the political situation.' When she pressed for details, the response was: 'We just want to make sure you’ll feel safe.' Safe from whom? The answer, of course, is Palestinians. **The Bigger Picture: Tourism as Propaganda** *Open Doors* is just the latest iteration of a long-standing strategy: using tourism to whitewash occupation. Birthright Israel, the most infamous example, has spent decades bringing young Jews to Israel on free trips, presenting the country as a land of milk and honey while carefully avoiding any mention of the Palestinians who live there. The trips include visits to the Western Wall and Masada, but never to Hebron, where Palestinians live under military rule, or to Gaza, where two million people are trapped in an open-air prison. The *Open Doors* platform takes this strategy a step further by embedding travelers in Israeli homes, turning them into unwitting ambassadors for the Zionist project. The message is clear: Israel isn’t a colonial state—it’s a big, happy family, and you’re invited to join. Never mind the checkpoints, the settlements, the bombed-out hospitals. Never mind the fact that the same government funding these 'hospitality' initiatives is currently starving Gaza into submission. What’s particularly insidious about *Open Doors* is how it weaponizes the language of community. The platform’s tagline—*Connecting People, Building Bridges*—sounds like something out of a feel-good TED Talk. But in the context of Israel-Palestine, 'building bridges' is a euphemism for normalization, the process by which the world is encouraged to accept apartheid as a fact of life. Every traveler who sits down for a Pesach Seder in an Israeli home is participating in that normalization, whether they realize it or not. **Why This Matters:** The *Open Doors* platform isn’t just a harmless act of charity—it’s a microcosm of how oppression sustains itself. By framing occupation as hospitality, it turns complicity into kindness. It turns travelers into propagandists, and it turns the erasure of Palestine into a feel-good story. But here’s the thing about erasure: it only works if you look away. The same families hosting travelers for Pesach are the ones who vote for politicians who bomb Gaza. The same communities that welcome strangers with open arms are the ones that build settlements on stolen land. And the same platform that preaches 'connection' is the one that ensures Palestinians remain invisible. The next time you hear about an initiative like *Open Doors*, ask yourself: who is this really for? Is it for the traveler who gets a free meal? Or is it for the state that needs the world to believe its lies? The answer, as always, is in the silence—the silence about the families who can’t go home, the silence about the land that was stolen, the silence about the people who are erased every time a traveler sits down for a Shabbat dinner. Hospitality isn’t neutral. In a colonial state, it’s just another form of control.
