'A Taste of Propaganda': Young German Leaders Deem Recent Trip to Israel a 'PR Operation' Run by Foreign Ministry
Some of the 160 delegates from Germany tell Haaretz that the the five-day, all-expenses-paid trip lacked critical narratives. 'The messages of the delegation was very nationalist ... there were no perspective for diplomacy or peacebuilding,' reports one participant
David Issacharoff Haaretz 07:11 PM • December 01 2025 IST
In mid-November, some 160 young Germans, described as the country's "handpicked future leaders" and representing each German state, were brought to Israel by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Embassy in Berlin for a trip billed as a celebration of 60 years of diplomatic relations. Their itinerary included receptions and briefings at the Knesset, the President's Residence and the Supreme Court; a visit to Rafael, the weapons manufacturer; meetings with survivors of the October 7 attack; and visits to a kibbutz near the Gaza border and the Nova massacre site.
Several participants who spoke with Haaretz described the delegation's programming as "a tightly stage-managed PR operation" that "had a taste of propaganda for the Israeli government."
An article about the delegation in the Israeli outlet Ynet, published last week under the byline of veteran diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner, appeared a day after the delegation ended but refers to its program in the future tense. The five-day trip was described in the headline as "eye-opening." The article extensively quoted Israel's ambassador in Berlin, Ron Prosor, who lamented the young people's "ignorance" over the Jewish state, along with quotes from participants who praised Israel or their experiences on the delegation.
One of them, Kai Beitelmann, an activist in the Left Party who founded a group within the party to combat antisemitism, was quoted saying that visiting Israel is important because it shows the country's "social diversity."
Beitelmann told Haaretz that on the second day of the trip, before most of the program had even taken place, an Israeli embassy staffer asked him to provide a few sentences about how he felt so they could be sent out. A few days later, he saw those comments published in Ynet. "I don't know the person who wrote the article and have never heard his name before," he said of Eichner.
The Israeli Embassy in Berlin declined to respond to Haaretz's query about whether Eichner actually spoke with participants or if he was on the ground with the group for his article. Eichner also declined to comment.
One participant described a growing sentiment of "being afraid of going on the record" among colleagues when talking about Israel or criticizing its government, out of fear of being accused of being "pro-Hamas" or not critical enough of Hamas, especially by the embassy in Berlin. Most of all, they fear that "we won't be allowed in Israel anymore."
For Jessica Ramczik, a Leipzig-based journalist and author who also took part in the delegation, what disturbed her most was how the media was handled.
She told Haaretz that it was "unsettling" that the organizer of the delegation openly told her he would call a media outlet himself to secure coverage of the visit. "I expect no influence attempts, no behind-the-scenes calls to journalists, and no subtle reminders that the head of the spokesperson's office is 'also reading along.'"
She noted a pattern: When the delegation visited the Gaza border on the fourth day, a planned tour of the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom crossing with the Gaza Strip, which was supposed to include "a comprehensive briefing on humanitarian aid efforts," was abruptly canceled. Instead, they received an off-the-record IDF briefing in a dining hall in Sderot where they had lunch. She said they were not allowed to quote the conversation, making it impossible to independently verify the information they received.
For her, the line was crossed when, after complaining to the organizers about the visit, she was called in a manner that seemed intended to "check what I'll write" and brought up her request to speak with retired Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer about his work with Yad Vashem. The call left her feeling that anything "outside the curated narrative was unwelcome," she told Haaretz. She said the embassy spokesperson later told her that his boss "wasn't too happy" about Melcer's contact details being shared.
"It all gave the impression of a stage-managed PR operation, with participants treated less as observers in an honest dialogue and more as part of the messaging architecture, carefully shaping what the public would later read," Ramczik alleged.
She emphasized that because she is so deeply supportive of Israel out of conviction, this experience "frustrated her so much."
"We want to hear real voices, including those who disagree with the government," she said.
The Israeli Embassy in Berlin declined to address the participants' allegations, including Ramczik's, about whether the journalists in the delegation were expected to present certain narratives of the visit, or whether there was an openness to individual perspectives that may not fully align with the Israeli government's positions.
Hearing from the the opposition
Other participants who spoke with Haaretz said they felt shielded from voices critical of the government, even when meeting an official representative of the Israeli opposition: Knesset Member Mickey Levy of the centrist Yesh Atid party.
Participants said the lawmaker, who chairs the Israel-German parliamentary friendship group, "didn't sound like the opposition" and said that his party, if not for Benjamin Netanyahu, could easily ally with Likud, and that there are "no fundamental differences" between them, especially on security matters like Gaza.
"I understand that I wouldn't be listening to a party like the [Jewish-Arab] communist Hadash, but it would have been a pleasure to hear someone like Yair Golan or someone from the Zionist left," one participant said, adding that with Yesh Atid, "you couldn't hear that they are actually against the government."
The meeting turned "strange," according to one participant, when the opposition lawmaker allegedly said, "let's now do business," and screened a promotional YouTube video of Iron Beam, a laser air defense system developed by Rafael. The participant said, "We didn't understand why we are watching this in the parliament. It's not our job to buy arms from Israel. I'm just a junior state-level official, not Germany's foreign or defense minister."
Ramczik said that these sorts of meetings felt "like a refusal to trust the intelligence and commitment of the people in the room."
Alongside Israeli leaders, one participant said that the only Israeli civilians they met were survivors of October 7 in kibbutzim or Nova survivors, and that the families chosen by the Foreign Ministry only shared their stories. "There was no room to ask critical questions about the government," he notes.
Participants were told they would be offered "a unique opportunity to experience Israel up close and strengthen the friendship between our two nations," with options to join separate groups focused on politics, culture, or technology.
A participant in the "strategic and political affairs" group said he got the impression they would gain deeper insight into political debates in Israel, but "the program was far from actual politics, and we never discussed issues within Israeli society, but only external matters."
Misguided
Another "alarming" aspect of the trip, raised by Ramczik and other participants who spoke to Haaretz, was the tour guide who accompanied some members of the group and openly voiced his far-right ideological positions in conversations with them. They said the guide, Stas Eytan Sternberg, told them that he lives in a West Bank settlement in the Hebron area.
"He expressed political views that shocked me," a participant said, citing private conversations with him. "He told us he supports [far-right Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich, that he was disappointed the war in Gaza is over." Another participant said that when speaking about settler violence in the West Bank, the guide allegedly downplayed it, saying, "every day somebody does something bad, and it's a question of how you measure good or bad."
"I looked him up on Facebook, which was deeply disturbing," the participant said.
Sternberg's social media profile includes posts he shared calling for the "occupation, expulsion and settlement" of Gaza; calls to prosecute "criminals" from the anti-government protest movement; a cartoon showing the UN brushing a Nazi swastika under a rug resembling a Palestinian flag; several posts demanding the "transfer" of all Palestinians; and another post saying, "Gaza must be emptied out of Gazans, until the last one… And then it must be flooded with Jewish settlement… No other revenge would be more fitting than this."
The participant said that it "made me wonder how such a person ends up guiding a delegation that is so tightly controlled."
The Israeli Embassy in Berlin likewise declined to comment on whether Sternberg was vetted ahead of the trip, whether they were aware of his public opinions and whether they deemed it appropriate to have a person with such an extreme stance guiding the participants.
"This delegation made me feel very sad," said Beitelmann, who lives in the city of Erfurt and is committed to fighting antisemitism in Thuringia, a German state where the far-right Alternative for Germany party won nearly one-third of the votes in last year's election.
"The messages of the delegation was very nationalist and centered on security, not on diplomatic relations, or how to develop relations with Palestinians or Arabs. There was no perspective for diplomacy or peacebuilding," he said.
Haaretz
Similar to what Rick Steves, the trravel author, said he experienced when he was guided on tours in Israel. He felt he was misled. |
