By Mohamed Harees –

Lukman Harees

The latest Israeli-sponsored study tour for a group of Sri Lankan journalists  ‘aimed at giving foreign media and policymakers a clearer understanding of the country’s current situation’ , is not surprising at all, considering the Zionist regime’s larger PR propaganda scheme. Sponsoring study tours is a key tactic of the Israeli public diplomacy effort known as hasbara, which seeks to promote Israel’s image and interests abroad. Many groups of journalists, students, and politicians are regularly taken on such study tours to Israel.

On the surface, visiting Israel is not a sin, as a recent local online journal pointed out, referencing the so-called ‘hysteria’ around the news of this Sri Lankan group of journalists on the Israeli-sponsored study tour. They stressed that the journalists must be allowed to witness both sides of the story without vilification. It is, however, important to put this study tour in context, given the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the turn of world opinion against the war crimes of Bibi’s Apartheid regime. The big question is whether both sides will be shown to them on this sponsored tour, especially as Israel attempts to consciously suppress the truth by killing hundreds of Palestinian journalists and shutting out foreign journalists despite global calls for their access. It is important to consider this tour in the greater context of the Indiscriminate killing of Palestinian journalists, which reflects Israeli determination to shut out local reporting of the truth, while the ongoing denial of access to foreign journalists is much less about their safety and more about preventing proper scrutiny and accountability of the desperate situation there.

A sponsored study tour for journalists in Israel usually involves visits and opportunities to cover various aspects of Israeli society, politics, and its ongoing military campaign in Gaza. However, access to conflict zones like Gaza remains restricted and heavily controlled by the military. Journalists meet with Israeli officials, military, and particularly community leaders in border areas to gain insights into policy areas and societal developments. They are expected to report on aspects of Israel that are emphasised during the tour. Notably, there were no speakers to provide an alternative opinion on the itinerary. Instead, the journalists would be presented with a one-sided view of the conflict, seen only through Israeli eyes; not to witness the devastation in Gaza, but to take part in a choreographed tour designed, funded, and controlled by the Israeli government.

Thus, while journalists on sponsored tours might gain access to government-approved information, the lack of independent access to restricted areas like Gaza makes it difficult to achieve a comprehensive and unbiased understanding of complex issues. Essentially, sponsored tours are curated experiences that offer a narrow perspective on Israel but do not usually provide unfiltered access to conflict zones or permit independent reporting beyond pre-approved sites and discussions. Thus, how far is Israel committed to reporting the truth?

Israel is running two Gaza campaigns: one for military control of the strip; another for narrative control of how the world understands what happens there. In this context, hasbara acknowledges the power of narrative control as a potent weapon. Narrative is an element of rhetoric. It defines context. In modern warfare, command of the information environment can be as important as control of the battlefield. Israel’s use of disinformation to advance its interests and manage its image is extensive, especially in the current genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. One key element of Israel’s disinformation strategy is the use of hasbara networks, which play a crucial role in disseminating false narratives and diverting attention to influence public perception, not just in the US and Europe, but globally.

Israel stands accused of egregious crimes in Gaza. Swathes of Gaza’s medical infrastructure have been razed, many of the territory’s buildings have been destroyed, and tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed, maimed and left hungry and malnourished in a war fought mainly from the air with heavy ordinance dropped on crowded civilian areas. These extraordinary eyewitness accounts are not brought to our screens by experienced international war correspondents – they are barred from entering Gaza. In the history of modern warfare, the presence of journalists on the battlefield has been essential in holding the combatants to account and ensuring that war crimes and atrocities are uncovered and prevented.

In a piece by Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in the NYT she states: “The high rate of journalists’ deaths and arrests, including a slew in the West Bank; laws allowing its government to shut down foreign news outlets deemed a security risk, which the prime minister has explicitly threatened to use against Al Jazeera; and its refusal to permit foreign journalists independent access to Gaza all speak to a leadership that is deliberately restricting press freedom. That is the hallmark of a dictatorship, not a democracy.”

Within Israel, the media largely publish the IDF version of events without challenge. According to Israeli journalist and activist Anat Saragusti: “Hebrew-speaking Israelis watching television news are not exposed at all to what’s going on in Gaza. We don’t see atrocities, the rubble, the destruction, and the humanitarian crisis. The world sees something completely different.” Meanwhile, the left-wing newspaper Haaretz (published in Hebrew and in English) has been threatened with financial penalties for “sabotaging Israel in wartime” through its more nuanced journalism. Recent reports from Ido David Cohen highlight that television news channels present the most extreme example of censorship, as they have “devoted themselves to national morale, exclusively relying on official military statements and completely ignoring Palestinian casualties”.”

As Sky News UK reported, ‘the barring of international journalists is accompanied by the active delegitimisation of what reporting on the war has been possible, which is often shamefully labelled as anti-Semitic and compared to the darkest periods in Jewish history’. Altogether, this constitutes a war on truth that is at odds with Israel’s proud and oft-repeated fake claim to be the ‘Middle East’s only democracy’, and it should not be allowed to stand.

International news organisations have repeatedly called for access to Gaza. Now, a group of more than 1,000 international journalists have signed a petition demanding to be let in; Israel has so far refused. The government says it cannot guarantee their security in such an active battlefield. But that cannot be a justification alone. All those who have signed the petition know well the risks of reporting from hostile environments.

Then again, the killing of journalists in the Gaza war, overwhelmingly Palestinians killed by Israel, along with other acts of violence against journalists, marks the deadliest period for journalists in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since 1992 and the single deadliest conflict for journalists in all known conflicts in the history of the world, according to the Costs of War Project.  In theory, Palestinian journalists and social media influencers documenting starvation, mass killing and other Israeli war crimes in Gaza are protected civilians under international law. But those paper protections have meant little on the ground in Gaza, by far the most dangerous place in the world to be a reporter, where more than 200 Palestinian journalists were killed in 22 months of war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Press freedom groups and journalists say those killings are part of a campaign of intimidation to shut down vital reporting, which Israel has justified internationally with smears and false claims that the targets were undercover Hamas fighters. With international reporters barred from independent reporting in Gaza – a handful have been allowed in under Israeli military escort, but they are not allowed to move freely or speak to Palestinians – the work done by journalists in Gaza is critical.

As CPJ chief executive, Jodie Ginsberg, talking to Guardian UK, said, “I do not doubt that the prevention of international access, the killings of journalists, the targeting of media facilities, the punishment of [Israeli] outlets like Haaretz is part of a deliberate strategy on the part of Israel to conceal what is happening inside Gaza”. Recently, Israelis killed prominent Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, along with four colleagues, branding them Hamas operatives. Sara Qudah, the Middle East and North Africa director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said: “Israel’s pattern of labelling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom.”

RSF reports ‘Benyamin Netanyahu’s government is openly targeting media independence and pluralism in Israel’. More than 250 news outlets around the world have signed an appeal that calls for the protection of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, for foreign press to be granted independent access to the territory and for the evacuation of wounded journalists in Gaza needing medical treatment abroad. The hypocrisy is thus staggering.

Israel is funding trips of media people to divert world opinion about its genocide in Gaza. There will be no sight of bombed-out hospitals, no interviews with bereaved Palestinian families, no first-hand experience of the blockade’s crushing impact. While this study group is feted by Israeli officials, not a single international journalist has been allowed into Gaza since the war began.

Let’s be clear: this is not journalism. This is stage-managed propaganda, and the so-called “journalists” participating are, wittingly or not, acting as extensions of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is bankrolling the entire trip. These recipients of Zionist gold are a disgrace to their profession when scores of their Palestinian colleagues are being killed indiscriminately for reporting the real ground situation, and no foreign journalists are being allowed in to report. By participating in this charade, these journalists help manufacture public consent for Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Every sanitised photo-op, every official quote unchallenged, helps launder a genocidal war in which civilians are paying the ultimate price.