Amid the systematic killing of Palestinian and Lebanese journalists, one organisation has been quietly bringing British media workers to Israel.

Journalist Amal Khalil reporting in Lebanon last month (Photo: Mohammed Zaatari/Alamy)

Lobby group taking journalists on propaganda tours of Israel

JOHN McEVOY
23 April 2026

On Wednesday, journalist Amal Khalil and photographer Zeinab Faraj were reporting from southern Lebanon when an Israeli airstrike reportedly hit a car in front of them. 

The two journalists, working for the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, were then targeted as they sought shelter in a nearby home. Khalil was killed and Faraj was seriously injured.

Khalil is one of over 259 Palestinian and Lebanese journalists to be killed by Israel since 2023, with the IDF responsible for two-thirds of all journalist killings globally in 2025.

While systematically killing Palestinian journalists, the Israeli government blocked entry of foreign media workers to Gaza, in an effort to create a blackout of its genocidal campaign.

At the same time, an influential lobby group named ELNET has been quietly taking UK journalists on propaganda tours of Israel, Declassified can reveal.

ELNET was created in 2007 to “counter the widespread criticism of Israel in Europe”, and is increasingly seen as the AIPAC of Europe.

The journalists who participated in ELNET delegations to Israel have written for some of Britain’s largest news organisations including the Telegraph, Spectator, and Mail on Sunday.

ELNET has also taken former British military officers to Israel, with many of them returning to Britain and putting a positive spin on the IDF’s operations in Gaza.

Des Freedman, professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, told Declassified: “Journalists can try to claim that these are fact-finding visits but, in reality, they are junkets specifically deigned to generate pro-Israel coverage.

“Embedded journalism like this is dodgy in peacetime but utterly scandalous during a genocide when the rest of the world’s media have been locked out of Gaza. 

“At the very least, just as the UK competition regulator insists that paid-for content must be ‘clearly labelled’, the same should apply to news stories that are made possible by well-funded supporters of the Israeli regime”.

ELNET...    

READ MORE   https://www.declassifieduk.org/lobby-group-taking-journalists-on-propaganda-tours-of-israel/

The U.S. provides Israel more than $63 million in military aid per day... The United States spends more on military aid to Israel than to any other country. Israel receives this extraordinary amount of money even though it is the 22nd wealthiest country in the world.

Aid to Israel in Previous Years

From October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, the U.S. gave Israel a total of at least $17.9 billion. This works out to $49,041,095.89 per day.

The Real Costs to US Taxpayers

 Like many government policies, this disbursement of U.S. tax money is not because it serves American interests, but instead is the result of special interest lobbying.

 https://ifamericansknew.org/download/StaggeringCost.pdf

The United States has granted more total aid to Israel since World War II than to any other country.

Cumulative US foreign assistance obligations between 1946 and 2022 to the top ten recipients. Inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars. (source)

 https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/usaid.html

IF AMERICANS KNEW 

  [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]  

More articles on US Aid to Israel 

"It is sad and painful that you come to these Holy Lands for an unholy purpose and that is to adhere to the [Israeli] occupation, its oppressive policies and practices against the Palestinian people" ... "How can a Christian ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people especially what happened during the two years in Gaza which was a War of Holocaust." Theodosios Atallah Hanna, Palestinian Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in an open letter to US Vice President JD Vance

Theodosios Atallah Hanna, Palestinian Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in an open letter to US Vice President JD Vance: —

 "You fed us with speeches about peace, but you did not do anything for the sake of peace, no, you ignored Palestinian rights and proofs, and when the Palestinians lived their new burden during the two years of conquered and affected Gaza, you supported their oppressors who with your weapons killed many Palestinians, making you partners in this crime committed against our people." 

 https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/53533

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES & QUOTES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies] 

Message from Jerusalem Greek Orthodox Archbishop to JD Vance

• Oct 23rd, 2025

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Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Archbishop Atallah Hanna, Archbishop of Sebastia from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, issued this open message to US Vice President JD David Vance) yesterday, ahead of his visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old Jerusalem today - hoping that it will reach him and that the Palestinian Christian voice will be heard.

You will visit the Church of Resurrection tomorrow and you will see doors open because the Church of Resurrection has always and forever been open to all its visitors regardless of their religious affiliation, ethnicity or skin colour.

The love that we hold on to and call for is the one that He who conquered death by His Resurrection called, and that is in the place you will visit tomorrow.

I will address you in the language of love, faith and humanity, not in the language of politics and interests that you will hear from the Israeli politicians that you will meet. We are not politicians and we will not be, but we believe in the values of truth, justice and the victory of the oppressed, and we hope that your visit to the Holy Grave will lead you to receive some of the light that has sprung from this empty tomb to dispel the darkness of this world.

There are rulers in this world who have been blinded to the injustice that our Palestinian people has been exposed and continue to be faced. In front of them the American President - you are his deputy - and you boast about your Christianity, but whoever hears your statements and attitudes discovers and notices that you are far from Christianity and you are in a place that has nothing to do with Christian values that always urge us to win against the oppressed and the tortured.

The purpose of my message is not to condemn you, it is not one of our responsibilities, because there is a Creator in heaven, and he is the one we will stand in front of at a time when each of us will ask what did you do to your brother?

The purpose of this message of mine is to remind you as you visit the holiest sacred place for Christians in the world with your Christian, moral and humanitarian duties, namely to reject injustice, tyranny, occupation and oppression.

How can a Christian ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people especially what happened during the two years in Gaza which was a War of Holocaust.

You will stay in Jerusalem for three days but we have not heard that your program includes a meeting with Palestinian representatives. You will not to hear what the Palestinians say about themselves but just what is said about them from the Israeli side, who dedicated all your visit to meeting them and hearing what they say to you.

It is not possible to come to Jerusalem and Palestine without hearing what the Palestinians say about their suffering, pain and concerns and in particular what the Palestinian Christians say - as you will visit their blessed and glorious church tomorrow. It seems that you will be surrounded by security men, preventing you from hearing anything that may bother you. The side that is hosting you.

In the Church of Resurrection there will be a number of leaders, fathers, monks who will tell you frankly that Jerusalem is hungry for peace and our holy country is also hungry for peace but the peace we are calling is peace based on justice and respect for human rights.

What I would like to tell you is that it is not in your power to ignore the existence of the Palestinian people and it is sad and painful that you come to these Holy Lands for an unholy purpose and that is to adhere to the occupation, its oppressive policies and practices against the Palestinian people.

You fed us with speeches about peace, but you did not do anything for the sake of peace, no, you ignored Palestinian rights and proofs, and when the Palestinians lived their new burden during the two years of conquered and affected Gaza, you supportd their oppressors who with your weapons killed many Palestinians, making you partners in this crime committed against our people.

I hope that your entrance to the Church of Resurrection will be an agent to change something in your character towards what is better and what is best, especially that you say you are a Christian. I hope that the grace of the holy tomb and the blessing of the wheel of the wheel will touch your life and your thought to be more just and humane. We pray for you and for the rulers of this world - those who lost their humanity, so that the humanity they lost returns, and will be their compass in the right direction.

What you should hear is what you will not hear at all during your visit, from your Israeli friends: that Palestine exists and its people exist and its cause is a living issue that many people support around this world, especially in America ...

American politics has only brought destruction - not only in Palestine but also in other places of the world. The successive American administrations played a destructive role in more than one place and a spot in this world where oil was poured on the burning fire to make it more ignorant and leave behind destruction, destruction and inhuman disaster.

Palestinian Christians and all our people are calling you as you enter the Old City of Jerusalem with tight Israeli guards that they wish you and your president to be more just.

Do you know that Palestinians are not allowed to enter the Church of Resurrection that you will visit tomorrow? They are also prevented from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the City of Jerusalem.

You crossed the oceans to reach Jerusalem, but a Palestinian who is half an hour away from Jerusalem by his car, cannot reach the Holy City, because there are barriers, gates and fences manned by the military.

Do you know that the war of genocide in Gaza left a huge destruction, a disaster and a tragedy that cannot be imagined by a human mind, and all of this is with the blessing of the American administration and those with it?

I invite you to radically change your policies in our region, the peace that we all want cannot be by supporting Israel and supporting its wars and its criminal policies against the Palestinian people. Peace is based on justice, respect and protection of human rights. Peace cannot be built on the ruins of the Palestinian people and by conspiring against the people.

When your president visited Jerusalem and Sharm Sheikh a few days ago, he did not touch Palestine at all as if it is not on a map, but in fact it is on the map, not in his mind and in his opinion distorted by the Zionist lobby that controls ruling in the United States.

They tell us that America is an oasis of democracy and freedom, but it is not. When the racist Zionist lobby controls the government and they direct the policies and attitudes, it means that America is undercover occupation even if it claims to be an oasis of democracy, freedom and human rights defense.

Your attitude towards the Palestinian people and their just cause is what makes us determine whether you are a Christian or otherwise. Please return to your humanity and true Christianity, and do not ignore the injustice that our Palestinian people are facing, and do not disregard the suffering of this people and their quest to live in freedom, dignity and peace.

Yes, we are with peace, and we pray for peace, and tomorrow you will listen to the fathers in the Church of Resurrection who will stress the concept of peace, but our peace is not the peace of surrender, but the peace of freedom, dignity, abstinence from occupation, preservation of freedom and dignity of the Palestinian human.

I hope you receive my message and not be blocked by those around you who do not want you to hear the voice of truth and justice, but want you to here the voice of misguidance, distortion and falsification of facts and records.

We pray for you and for your president and all the rulers in this world to work to remove the injustice from our people, who deserve to live and do not deserve to die and deserve freedom and do not deserves to stay alive under occupation and slavery.

As you enter the Church of Resurrection, remember that this place reminds us of the victory of life over death, the victory of good over evil, and the victory of love over hate and racism.

We raise our prayers for our oppressed people in Gaza and for our Palestinian people displaced under the occupation, and remind you of what His Holiness, the late Pope Francis, said when he went to Bethlehem and was shocked by the presence of military fences and barriers, where he said in front of the media who accompanied his visit to Bethlehem, "that peace does not need military fences or barriers." Instead peace needs bridges of love, brotherhood and mercy.

"Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful," and remember that Jerusalem is a holy city of the three monotheistic religions, and it's not thanks to your host who claims to be a Jewish city ignoring its importance in both Christianity and Islam religions.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God who are called." (Matthew 9:5)

Archbishop Atallah Hanna
Jerusalem 22/10/2025

It's been 107 years since the Balfour Declaration and Britain has not yet atoned for its grave historic mistake. It is time to make amends with the Palestinian people.

It's been 107 years since the #BalfourDeclaration and Britain has not yet atoned for its grave historic mistake. It is time to make amends with the Palestinian people.

 

Husam Zomlot

@hzomlot

Ambassador of the State of Palestine to the UK. Former Ambassdor to the United States.

 

Today, 2 November 2024, marks 107 years since the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917. 

 

It has never been more urgent that the injustice of that declaration be addressed and accounted for.

By ignoring the rights of the Palestinian people to their own land, the Balfour Declaration effectively cancelled the Palestinian people.

 

This set in motion a series of events culminating in the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the Palestinian people in the 1947-49 Nakba. 

 

By then allowing Israel to ignore, without consequence, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a long record of Israeli impunity began. 

 

This record of impunity has emboldened Israel not only to seek to take more territory by force over the following decades, but to engage in an ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and across occupied territory.

 

It is time Israeli impunity ends. 

 

It is time the cancellation of the Palestinian people embodied in the Balfour Declaration is addressed.

And it is time the British government accepts its historic responsibility for this state of affairs, and took action to redress the injustice at the heart of the Balfour Declaration. 

 

How can the UK begin to make amends and work toward ending Israeli impunity? 

 

The UK must take steps to end the ongoing genocide. 

 

It can do this by imposing a full arms embargo, instituting sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including occupied East Jerusalem, and demand accountability for Israeli leaders accused of war crimes. 

 

The UK must immediately recognise the State of Palestine as a long overdue inalienable right of the Palestinian people and in compliance with international law and international resolutions.

 

This should come along with an official apology from the British government for the cancellation of the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights.

 

 Simultaneously, the UK must also, in compliance with the International Court of Justice and international law and in accordance with the UK’s explanation for its the vote in the UN’s General Assembly on 18 September, ban all trade in goods and services with Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied territory, penalise British companies that operate illegally there, and affirm the UK’s support for the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

 

International law as expressed by the International Court of Justice is clear: third parties must end any support for Israel’s illegal occupation and recognise the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. 

 

Those steps are well understood. It is time to take them.

Palestine in the UK

@PalMissionUK

 

 

1917 Balfour Declaration

Anti-Defamation League ramps up lobbying to promote controversial definition of antisemitism : Federal records show a dramatic spending increase that critics say is primarily intended to punish criticism of Israel and target pro-Palestinian groups

 The Anti-Defamation League has spent record amounts on lobbying in recent years, including on bills opponents say are meant to punish criticism of Israel and target Jewish peace and Palestinian rights groups.

The Jewish civil rights organization, founded in 1913, is the self-described “leading anti-hate organization in the world”, and has historically focused on combating antisemitism by shaping public opinion. Its lobbying spike marks a dramatic shift – it spent about $100,000 on lobbying in 2020 and is on pace to spend nearly $1.6m this year based on its first quarter expenditures, a Guardian analysis of federal records finds.

The spending positions the ADL as the largest pro-Israel lobbying force on domestic issues. Records show the surge’s broader aim is to promoting a controversial definition of antisemitism across a range of federal agencies and mobilizing the government to enforce it....

 READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/15/adl-lobby-antisemitism-definition

Stephen Kapos is a regular figure on the pro-Palestine marches, often as part of the ever-growing Jewish bloc: “My message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don’t give up.”

Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos  STOP THE WAR

 

“My message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don’t give up.” – Stephen Kapos

A Holocaust survivor opposed to Israel’s war on Gaza on Wednesday told U.S. student protesters they’re on the right side of history, and that the global wave of demonstrations against the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians will soon force Western leaders to face up to their complicity in genocide.

Stephen Kapos, 86, was 7 years old in 1944 when he was separated from his family during the Nazi extermination of Jews in his native Hungary. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust but Kapos survived and moved to the United Kingdom after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary.

Kapos is part of a small group of Shoah survivors and their descendants who “demonstrate disagreement with the use of the Holocaust experience as a cover by the Zionists and the state of Israel.” They attend protests wearing signs around their necks reading, “This Holocaust Survivor Says Stop the Genocide in Gaza!”

“As a Holocaust survivor, my message to the brave student protesters in America is just keep doing it. Don’t give up,” Kapos said in video published by Double Down News. “We are doing exactly the same, and in the long term we are going to prevail.”

Kapos’ comments came amid a growing wave of pro-Palestine student protests—many of them Jewish-led—on dozens of U.S. university and college campuses in response to Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice in January found “plausibly” genocidal and which many Israeli and international experts say is undoubtedly a genocide.

According to Gazan and international officials, more than 122,000 Palestinians have been killed or maimed during 202 days of near-relentless Israeli attacks. This figure includes around 11,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings. Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced. Starvation and dehydration caused by Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza are killing children and other vulnerable people.

Instead of condemning Israeli leaders, the Biden administration has lavished them with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid while providing diplomatic cover for Israeli crimes and blocking recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.

As the suffering in Gaza continues, U.S. students have set up encampments or staged other forms of protest, some of which have been brutally repressed by police—who have also attacked and arrested journalists and bystanders.

On Wednesday, far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu implored U.S. authorities to crack down even harder on the students, whom he called an “antisemitic mob.”

Highlighting video footage of Netanyahu comparing the student protests to what happened at German universities during the rise of Nazism, Kapos said that “the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they’re doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust.”

He said he is also protesting “the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism, which is what the Israeli state is trying to do, which does nothing but increase antisemitism.”

Kapos predicted that “today’s marches are having a very hopeful aspect that is so large, so persistent, so global that eventually the Western leadership—which are trying to deny what is actually going on—will be forced to face up to it, and I think we are not far from that.”

“There is a question of historical responsibility towards injustice, genocide, and fascism,” Kapos asserted. “If you are indifferent, if you do not take a stand, you acquire a degree of guilt without any doubt and I think it is imperative to assert opposition and even some degree of disadvantage and risk if you want to be guilt-free when history judges what’s happening.”

Kapos and his comrades are part of a long history of Holocaust survivors speaking out against Israeli crimes against Palestinians.

Long before today’s growing acknowledgment that Israel is an apartheid state, the late Suzanne Weiss—whose parents were murdered in Nazi-occupied France—said in 2010 that “the Palestinians are victims of ethnic cleansing and apartheid” and that “the Israeli government’s actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family’s experiences under Hitlerism.”

Hajo Meyer, who survived 10 months in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, argued during his lifetime that “what is happening to the Palestinians every day under the occupation” was “almost identical” to “what was done to the German Jews before the ‘Final Solution,’” and that instead of making Jews safer, Israeli policies and practices were stoking the flames of antisemitism.

Holocaust survivors who stand up for Palestinian rights have been condemned by critics as “antisemites” and “self-hating Jews” who, in Meyer’s case, allegedly abused his status as a Holocaust survivor.

Kapos, who has experienced such slurs, is undaunted and says he has no plans to stop protesting. During a recent rally in London he vowed, “I’ll keep doing it as long as the bombing and apartheid and the injustice is going on.”

Source: Common Dreams

26 Apr 2024 • by Brett Wilkins

 Stop the War

Free Gaza: Stop the Massacre - End the Siege! 

🇵🇸 #MayDay4Palestine 🇵🇸