In late July, I received a peculiar cold email. It was an invitation from the American Middle East Press Association (AMEPA) for an all-expenses-paid tour of Israel, tailored exclusively to members of the U.S. media. As a journalist in Alabama whose job consists primarily of chasing around lawmakers and writing about committee hearings, the offer was certainly outside my wheelhouse. But as someone who has observed Israel’s war in Gaza closely and the western media’s coverage of the war, I was intrigued, especially since AMEPA’s goal is “to get the truth out there,” according to Kim Kamen, the organization’s chief operating officer. So in September, I took them up on their offer and headed to Israel.
During the five-day trip, we were told that nearly every Palestinian in Gaza shared culpability for the October 7 attack by Hamas. Several of the experts and officials AMEPA introduced us to said that rape and brutal killings are inherent to the Islamic faith and that many United Nations aid workers were terrorists. Some even suggested that the countless videos of Palestinians injured or killed by Israeli bombardment were, in fact, often staged film productions. ….more
