There are many people to blame for Steinberg’s death. There is the Hamas fighter behind the weapon that actually killed him. There are the leaders, on both sides, who put him in Gaza, and the leaders behind all of the wars between Israel and the Palestinians. I can trace it back to 1948, or 1917, or whatever date suits you and still never find all the parties who are responsible. But I have no doubt in my mind that along with all of them, Birthright shares some measure of the blame…

At Slate, Allison Benedikt asserts that he was indoctrinated by Birthright to believe he should fight for Israel. And she blames Birthright for his death:

Max Steinberg is a 24-year-old American who was just killed in Gaza, fighting for the Israeli Defense Forces. He visited Israel for the first time in 2012 on a Birthright trip, the program that sends American Jews to Israel, and he drank the Koolaid. His parents had never been to Israel.

Benedikt quotes Kiera Feldman’s great expose of Birthright and mentions the sexual tourism element of the trips. Her piece refers to Zionism once — the “Zionist claim to the land”– and it never uses the word indoctrination. But it’s about indoctrination. When will 60 Minutes do this story about dubious and dangerous allegiance?

Indoctrination:

[Steinberg’s] mother told the Washington Post that, initially, he didn’t want to go on the Birthright trip, but once he did, it changed him. It was on his group’s visit to Israel’s national cemetery at Mount Herzl that Steinberg saw the grave of an American “lone soldier” who died fighting for Israel and “decided that Israel was where he wanted to be.” He joined the IDF, his father said, because he saw it as an obligation were he to stay in Israel…

And some healthy cynicism about indoctrination: