Diverse group of Indian journalists, including Muslims, visit war-torn southern Israel

The Indian journalists visited massacred kibbutzim, Yad Vashem the Holocaust museum, and the Knesset.

By Etgar Lefkovits, TPS

A delegation of Indian journalists and social media influencers, including three Muslim writers from Kashmir, are in Israel on a weeklong media tour as Israel seeks to bolster its case in the world of public opinion.

The group, which also includes an Afghan journalist living in exile in Germany, is visiting amid a bitter media war over the narrative of the war with Hamas.

“How do I stop the support for the evil things that Hamas has done,” Yana Mir, Kashmir’s first Muslim female blogger, told the Tazpit Press Service in an interview.

Mir, who has a combined quarter-million followers across several social media platforms, has been threatened for her support for Israel in Muslim-dominated Kashmir.

She said that reading a children’s book at the age of nine about the birth of Christianity changed her worldview and put her at odds with the universal teaching in Kashmir that Israel is the land of the Muslims.

“How can Israelis and Jews occupy their own land?” Mir asked. Of the Oct. 7 massacre that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and triggered the war, she said, “Now in our era, Jews are being exterminated again.”

Columnist Irfan Ali Pirjade added, “We felt the parallels with what Hamas is doing after visiting the [Yad Vashem] Holocaust Museum.”

Sajid Yousuf Shah, founder and CEO of The Real Kashmir News who now serves as media head of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in Kashmir, said, “I am Muslim, but Jews deserve life and dignity,” adding, “It’s not a matter of land but a matter of existence.”

He noted that his mother and uncle were killed in Kashmir by Islamist terrorists in front of his four-year-old cousin.

The weeklong study visit, which was funded by Sharaka, an Israeli non-governmental organization, whose name in Arabic means “partnership.” Founded after the signing of the Abraham Accords, the organization encourages dialogue, understanding, cooperation, and friendship.

The itinerary included visits to hard-hit southern kibbutzim attacked by Hamas, which have become a focus of war tours, and the traditional tourist stops at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Center and the Knesset in Jerusalem.

“Especially during these times, it was important for us to bring this group of journalists and social media influencers to see the truth firsthand so that they bring this story to millions of their readers and followers in India,” said Sharaka chairman Amit Deri.

The Afghan journalist on the delegation, Abdulhaq Omeri, said that he had no clue before the visit that Muslims make up 20% of Israeli citizens, noting that he was pleasantly pleased to freely visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and hear the Muslim call to prayer by the muezzin, things that he did not think were possible.

“People have forgotten the brutality of October 7 with the relentless propaganda of the media,” said Swati Goel Sharma, an editor at Swarajya magazine who is Hindu.

She said that while the Qatari-based Al Jazeera television network openly picks a side in the conflict, the Western media was more deceptive in their pretense of reporting on both sides’ perspectives.

The Indian journalist noted that the majority Hindu India was largely supportive of Israel, except for the upper class and the cinema world, which follow the cue of the American left.

“Not too many people in Bollywood have an understanding about Israel, but if [American actress] Susan Sarandon says something about Jews or Israel then it’s fashionable,” Sharma said.