Lobby Group Takes Journalists on Tours of Israel

Amid the systematic killing of Palestinian and Lebanese journalists, an organisation, seen as the “AIPAC of Europe,” brings British media workers to Israel, writes John McEvoy.

In late April, 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 U.K. 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 U.K. 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.”

The group was invited to a special meeting in 2024 with foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar to discuss how to improve “public diplomacy,” and its delegations to Israel are frequently arranged “in partnership” with the ministry of foreign affairs.

Emmanuel Navon, director of ELNET’s Israel office between 2023 and 2025, described Israel’s offensive into Rafah as “necessary” and suggested that then-EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell “need not worry about Gaza civilians.”

The group has broken fundraising records since 2023, according to The Intercept, with much of the money coming from wealthy U.S. donors including supporters of Donald Trump and AIPAC.

ELNET’s U.K. wing has been directed by former MP Joan Ryan since 2021. As chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Ryan was once filmed discussing a potential £1m payment with an Israeli embassy official.

After attending an ELNET delegation in 2023, one U.K. parliamentary adviser was asked by a senior figure at the Israeli embassy in London: “Did you enjoy the trip we sent you on?”

The U.K. branch has also condemned the U.K. government’s recognition of a Palestinian state as a “PR win” for Hamas and urged the full restoration of arms exports to Israel.

Documents obtained by Declassified via the Freedom of Information Act show how ELNET even lobbied the U.K. government over arms exports to Israel in July 2024.

“I would like to express my concerns regarding recent reports suggesting that the U.K. is considering a ban on arms export licences to Israel,” wrote Ryan and the group’s deputy-director, Aaron Cohen-Gold.

“The potential implications of such a decision are alarming. Banning arms sales to Israel could be perceived as a significant shift in the U.K.’s foreign policy (one which didn’t feature in the election campaign) and might inadvertently embolden hostile entities,” they continued.

ELNET did not respond to Declassified’s request for comment.

ELNET boasts how its tours offer “the access and insight required by journalists and influential figures to write analytic and insightful pieces” about the region.

In January 2024, ELNET brought 22 European lawmakers to Israel including Lord Walney, the U.K. government’s former “independent” adviser on political violence, and Lord Polak, the honorary chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel.

The star of the show was the disgraced Lord Mandelson, who posed for pictures alongside Israel’s president Isaac Herzog and told attendees that Hamas posed a threat “to the whole western world.”

One of the British journalists who joined that delegation was Zoe Strimpel, who writes a weekly opinion column for the Sunday Telegraph.

In an article for the Spectator, penned days after returning to the U.K., Strimpel declared how “most people” in Israel agree that “the war must go on until Hamas is completely destroyed.”

In another report in The Telegraph, Strimpel lambasted “the grotesquely false charge of Israeli ‘genocide’ in Gaza” as well as the “indulgence of hate speech and incitement in mosques.”

When asked about visiting Israel with ELNET, Strimpel told Declassified: “With all due respect, do you really think when you approach a committedly Zionist person… that I am going [to] enter into any kind of defensive response?”

She added: “As for Elnet, the more pro-Israel the better in my view.”

The other journalist on that delegation was David Rose, a writer for the Jewish Chronicle and the director of policy at the Free Speech Union.

Rose continued that “the trauma experienced throughout Israeli society means serious consideration of the longer-term relationship between Israel and the Palestinians is almost impossible to contemplate.”

While Rose acknowledged in his media reports that he had visited Israel with ELNET, it appears that Strimpel did not.

Rose told Declassified that it was “an extremely well-organised trip that provided me with high-level access to officials and politicians of all stripes,” and disputed that it was a “propaganda” tour.

In March 2025, ELNET led another delegation of “U.K. emerging leaders” to Israel including “think tankers, journalists, and private sector professionals.”

Declassified understands that at least two British journalists were present on that trip.

The next month, Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges acknowledged that ELNET had also paid for a recent trip to Israel.

Former U.K. military officers have also joined ELNET delegations and returned to write positive reports in the British media about Israel’s security operations.

Sir John McColl, a retired British army officer who served as a NATO commander in Europe between 2007 and 2011, joined a delegation of “senior defence officials” in September 2024.

The group posed for a picture with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and met with defence minister Yoav Gallant, both of whom are now wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Shortly after returning, McColl wrote in The Times about how the Israeli military’s “rules of engagement in Gaza are at least as rigorous as those of the British army.”

“I am satisfied that those rules are robust and the intent is there” to prevent civilian casualties, he added, while emphasising that international media should be let into Gaza.

Three other former British military figures on that delegation were Johnny Mercer, Colonel Richard Kemp, and Major Andrew Fox.

Mercer would go on to post pictures of himself in Rafah, while Fox published an article about his time in Israel on Substack and later wrote: “When does a journalist become a legitimate military target? Many not often enough.”

John McEvoy is chief reporter for Declassified UK. John is an historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain’s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain’s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.