This winter break, a group of Ithaca College students will travel to Israel on a trip funded by Taglit-Birthright. Birthright offers free trips to Israel for Jewish students who have never visited the country. The itineraries vary, but most take groups to religious sites and tourist attractions in order to introduce students to Israeli culture and society.

The students who travel to Israel this winter will find a beautiful country, with a stunning geography, great food and friendly, interesting people. They will visit ancient sites that represent a link to their ancestors and, for the religious among them, God. As Birthright intends, many will return with a strengthened feeling of attachment to the Jewish state of Israel.

But, in a land that is embroiled in a more than 60-year-old conflict, what these students won’t see will be as significant as what they do see.

IC Hillel, the on-campus club that organizes the trip, and Taglit-Birthright both claim to be apolitical organizations. But in Israel, everything is political. For at least some Palestinians, the creation of the state of Israel meant their dispossession. And that makes every site in Israel — and every explanation of it — full of multiple, often conflicting meanings.

I was struck by this complexity when I spent two months this summer studying Arabic at Birzeit University and traveling in Israel and the West Bank. I visited the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, just outside Jerusalem in the West Bank. Ma’ale Adumim is a beautiful, suburban community with palm trees and gardens — an example of Israel “making the desert bloom.” But I also knew that the settlement’s landscaping and swimming pool were part of the reason why my classmates living in Birzeit village kept running out of water.

These contradictions are everywhere. Haifa, the largest city in northern Israel, means something very different to the children of the Holocaust survivors who landed on its shores than it does to the children of the Arab families into whose houses the Holocaust survivors moved.

The forests planted by the Jewish National Fund, in which individual trees represent individual Jews’ connection to their “homeland”, carries a different meaning for the Arabs on whose land it was planted.

Birthright will present one perspective on Israel and its history. There are a multitude of other opportunities for students who participate in the program to educate themselves about the perspectives they will not find on the Birthright trip.

Birthright Unplugged is an organization started by two American Jews who have spent significant time living and working in the West Bank. Their six-day trip introduces foreigners — primarily Jews, often in Israel on Birthright — to a number of sites in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and to Israelis and Palestinians who are working on issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For those who can’t stay in Israel for an extra six days, the Israeli Campaign Against Home Demolitions runs tours in both Israel and the West Bank. The ICAHD tours, which take only a few hours, introduce participants to the effects of some Israeli policies on Palestinians and the peace process.

These trips aren’t for everyone. There will be some students who can’t — or won’t — hear the Palestinian perspective on Israel. But there will be some who will want to learn as much about the country as they can. No matter what these students ultimately decide about Israel, its history and its current policies, seeking out as complete a picture as possible can only better enrich their experiences.

Emily McNeill is a senior journalism major. E-mail her at emcneil1@ithaca.edu.