Sri Lanka: Is Visiting Israel a Sin?

Editorial

There is an absurdly misplaced hysteria surrounding a recent visit by a group of Sri Lankan journalists to Israel—a hysteria fuelled by opportunistic social media posts, lazy reporting, and orchestrated outrage. The original “story,” allegedly broken by a journalist dismissed by the BBC Sinhala service for his ethically questionable political affiliations before joining a fringe news website, has now metastasised into a full-blown moral panic. The website cited the Sri Lankan ambassador in Israel—a diplomat apparently fond of Facebook—and posted stories that triggered a wave of vitriol against Israel. This is exactly how manufactured consent operates: selective information, amplified outrage, and a careful avoidance of inconvenient truths. As Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman warned in Manufacturing Consent, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion.” What we are witnessing in Colombo is the textbook application of that principle: perceptions are being subtly shaped while critical inquiry is actively suppressed.

The sheer absurdity of this agitation becomes even clearer when one recalls the statements made by the father of this very journalist. In the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, he publicly sought to excuse the Islamic terrorists responsible for killing hundreds of innocent civilians. He did not condemn the violence; rather, he framed it as a minor grievance misdirected, telling the world that the “containers of swords imported to Sri Lanka” were not for attacking innocents, but for trimming grass in mosques. Let that sink in: while the country was reeling from mass murder, the father of this journalist effectively normalised terror as long as it stayed within certain arbitrary boundaries. How, then, can society justify the frenzy over journalists visiting Israel, while a casual, almost apologetic attitude towards mass murder is tolerated? This is not journalism—it is moral selectivity masquerading as ethics, a dangerous precedent for any society that claims to value truth and accountability.

The disproportionate animus against Israel raises further questions: who is funding these campaigns, and why is it so critical for certain media networks to depict the Jewish state as the perennial villain? Across the Middle East and Asia, countries from Iran to Saudi Arabia routinely invite foreign journalists to witness their narratives firsthand. Yet when Israel does precisely the same, suddenly it is portrayed as propaganda, brainwashing, or an attempt to “buy media influence.” This glaring double standard exposes the true nature of the agitation: it is not about truth, but about maintaining a one-sided story that serves ideological and financial interests. The protests in Colombo against Israel are not spontaneous moral outcries—they are carefully orchestrated, manipulated spectacles designed to create outrage, not understanding.

Journalism is meant to be a tool for investigation, not for partisanship or virtue signalling. Spreading rumours to satisfy political interests or the pockets of certain patrons undermines the profession’s core purpose. The notion that Israel cannot “tell its side of the story” is laughable. Every embassy around the world routinely invites journalists to observe the realities on the ground, from domestic policies to security concerns. Israel’s narrative—of survival in the face of terrorism, of the consequences of Hamas’s relentless attacks, and of a vibrant democracy criticised openly by its own citizens—deserves the same platform. Yet conspiracy theorists insist on simplifying complex realities into caricatures, amplifying every social media troll and manufactured outrage to portray Israel as an eternal oppressor.

Sri Lanka, a nation that has endured the horrors of terrorism—both during its decades-long civil war and the 2019 Easter bombings—should understand the logic of consequence. Israel, a democracy accountable to its citizens, faced the brutal Hamas attacks on October 7 with responses that some may find uncomfortable, even violent. But can anyone honestly claim moral innocence when confronted with orchestrated savagery? To demonise Israel while excusing or obfuscating similar acts elsewhere is not just hypocrisy—it is historical amnesia of the most dangerous sort. Winston Churchill warned, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it,” but it is the responsibility of journalists to resist the temptation to frame history for personal or ideological gain. To reject Israel’s perspective, to deny its journalists access to its reality, is to embrace censorship under the guise of moral outrage.

The ideological machinery behind this hysteria is instructive. Conspiracy theories, selective outrage, and partisan campaigns are deployed to suppress inconvenient truths. The same forces who now rage against Sri Lankan journalists visiting Israel were the ones who attempted to whitewash and excuse Islamic terrorism in Sri Lanka just a few years ago. They fear the other side of the story because it threatens the simplified moral binaries they have constructed: good versus evil, victim versus oppressor, Palestinian versus Israeli. These binaries are convenient, but they are false, and the public deserves better than a continuous diet of curated outrage.

Consider the implications: if journalists are intimidated from visiting Israel, then the public is denied the right to understand reality in its complexity. These journalists were not endorsing Israeli policy; they were observing, reporting, and analysing. This is the essence of journalism, yet it is being treated as an act of betrayal. Meanwhile, the same outlets that scream about moral responsibility were willing to normalise, or at least minimise, the importation of “swords” meant, allegedly, to cut grass in mosques instead of harming innocents. The moral disconnect is staggering. It is one thing to debate foreign policy; it is another to invert morality entirely, glorifying selective excuses for murder while condemning a mere fact-finding visit abroad.

This is not merely a defence of Israel—it is a critique of Sri Lanka’s vulnerability to propaganda and manufactured outrage. The country has the right to demand journalism that seeks the truth rather than repeating talking points. It must resist one-sided narratives, conspiratorial distortions, and ideological manipulation. Only by seeing multiple perspectives can Sri Lanka’s citizens hope to navigate the complex geopolitical realities of our world. A visit by journalists to Israel should not provoke scandal; it should provoke reflection. It should challenge assumptions, reveal inconvenient truths, and reclaim the right to think critically in an age of social media sensationalism.

Sri Lanka’s journalists must be free to witness both sides of the story without fear of vilification. The hysterical reaction against Israel’s transparency exposes a deep insecurity within certain political and social factions: they cannot tolerate nuance, they cannot tolerate facts that contradict their preferred narrative, and they cannot tolerate moral equivalence. Yet, for a nation that has endured terrorism, civil war, and the manipulation of public opinion, the need for courageous, independent reporting has never been greater. The public must demand that journalists not only report facts but also witness them firsthand—even if those facts are uncomfortable, inconvenient, or politically inconvenient.

In the end, the question is simple: is it wrong to visit Israel? If the purpose of journalism is to illuminate reality rather than propagate ideology, then the answer is a resounding no. It is not only permissible—it is essential. For Sri Lanka, a nation shaped by conflict and the manipulation of narratives, embracing the full complexity of international realities is not optional; it is a duty. The manufactured outrage, the conspiracy theories, the moral posturing, and the selective condemnation of terror must be rejected. Only then can Sri Lanka’s media, and its public, reclaim the right to see the world as it is, not as certain ideologues wish it to be.

Visiting Israel is not a sin. Failing to understand why it is necessary, failing to acknowledge the broader truths, and failing to challenge the selective outrage is the real moral failing.