Sri Lanka, Sept. 14 -- Sixteen Sri Lankan journalists recently participated in a five-day study/familiarisation trip to Israel organised by the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. The delegation and the trip were publicly confirmed by Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Israel through Facebook posting.

The tour prompted immediate criticism at home for multiple reasons: the timing amid intense international scrutiny of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and the widely reported killing of many journalists in that conflict, concerns that the trip functions as a managed "propaganda" visit rather than independent reporting, and fears about normalising or whitewashing Israeli policy through carefully curated foreign media trips.

The Government's messaging ha...