On 6th June, The Telegraph published an article outlining the abuse and criticism faced by Ben Ashworth, an Oxford University and Oxford Union member, over his visit to Israel. The article describes the trip as “a fact-finding trip to better understand the Gaza conflict”. A closer examination of the trip itinerary, however, tells a different story.
The Pinsker Centre describes itself as “a non-partisan think tank focusing on global foreign policy, especially the Middle East”. It provides free “Israel Policy Trips” to Oxford and Cambridge students to “learn about one of the most complex geopolitical conflicts in the world from a balanced, non-partisan policy perspective”.
However, the Centre was originally founded under a different name, “the Pinsker Centre for Zionist Education”. In an article written for Jewish News in 2016, one of the Centre’s founders described it as “an initiative of students who want to change the discourse around Israel on campus”. Another co-founder referred to it as a Zionist organisation leading trips to Israel for students from diverse backgrounds.
The organisation’s origins do not necessarily determine its operations today, but do challenge the claim they are a neutral entity by self-defining as “non-partisan.”
In continuation of this point, understanding contested conflict is highly dependent on who is chosen to explain it.
On social media, the Pinsker Centre says that participants met with President Isaac Herzog, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel and Meirav Leshem Gonen as well as Palestinian voices like Rami Nazzal and John Munayer.
It is not fundamentally objectionable for students to meet senior politicians; access to decision-makers can be educational.
However, when a trip presents itself as politically balanced whilst prominently featuring senior members of a government accused of war crimes, the claim deserves scrutiny.
Herzog is not an academic like John Munayer, but the president of Israel. In September 2025, the UN Human Rights Council legal analysis concluded that the Israeli president “incited the commission of genocide” following comments made after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023.
The report cites his statement that: “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians who were not aware and not involved. It is absolutely not true.”
Similarly, Sharren Haskel is not a journalist and tour guide company owner like Rami Nazzal, but a senior member of the Israeli government.
Their inclusion as speakers challenges any claim of a balanced fact-finding trip.
Yet perhaps the most striking omission from the article is not who the students met, but where they went.
The Pinsker Centre’s own itinerary states that the trip included a visit to the Golan Heights. The article made no mention of this, and instead readers are left with the impression that the trip consisted of a visit to Israel proper only.
The Golan Heights is not just another stop on an itinerary because its status remains disputed under international law. Notably, the UK has never recognised Israel’s annexation of the Heights, whilst Human Rights Watch have criticised Israeli government plans to expand settlements into the occupied territory. Under Article 49 of the 1949 Geneva Convention, an occupying power deporting or transferring part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies is a war crime. Subsequently, for Syrians, the Golan Heights remains a symbol of occupation and displacement. Clearly geography is not politically neutral.
To describe the delegation as a visit to Israel whilst omitting the inclusion of the Golan Heights removes an important aspect of the political landscape the students were invited to encounter.
No delegation can represent every Israeli and Palestinian perspective. How these choices were presented is therefore a greater issue than the fact that these choices were made at all.
Such a carefully curated programme shapes participants’ understandings of the conflict. To curate the trip, the Pinsker Centre had to choose which voices to elevate. This is an inherently political process.
The article is right to condemn a number of antisemitic incidents. Such abuse deserves unequivocal condemnation. Of course, criticism of the Israeli state can become antisemitic in conflating Jewish identity with Israeli state actors. Holding Jews as collectively responsible for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; such discrimination is completely unacceptable.
At the same time, criticism of political institutions, governments and political delegations in Israel is not automatically equivalent to hostility towards Jewish people. Israel is often presented by Western governments as the Middle East’s sole liberal democracy. If that is the claim, then its institutions and representatives must be subjected to the same scrutiny that forms a pillar of democracy. Either way, this characterisation is difficult to reconcile with the occupation, disenfranchisement and, discrimination of millions of Palestinians under Israeli control.
Conflating fairly made criticism of the Pinsker Centre’s itinerary with antisemitism weakens our ability to identify and confront genuine discrimination.
In the midst of one of the most controversial military campaigns of the century, described as genocide by the International Association of Genocide Scholars and an independent United Nations commission of inquiry, it is entirely legitimate to ask whether a fully funded delegation to Israel can ever be considered a politically neutral educational exercise.
It should concern us all that The Telegraph represented the trip as a politically neutral fact-finding mission while omitting important context about its itinerary and speaker selection. Readers should be given sufficient context to assess claims of balance and neutrality for themselves. The free press exists as a tool to scrutinise those with power and influence, not stifle dissenting opinions.
Students can gain a lot from visiting Israel, Palestine, and the wider region. But when a fully funded delegation to Israel claims to be a non-partisan, balanced guide to one of the world’s most contested conflicts, those claims should be subject to careful scrutiny.
When contacted for comment, the Pinsker Centre said:
“Our trips are non-partisan educational programmes that enable students to engage directly with the complexities of the region through first-hand observation and discussion. Programmes have included meetings with senior Israelis as well as prominent Palestinian political figures, such as Dr Mustafa Barghouti. The inclusion of speakers with widely differing, and often opposing, viewpoints is intended to inform students’ understanding of the issues rather than promote any particular position. Where the itinerary includes places with contested legal or political status, those issues are presented and discussed. Visiting such locations is an important part of understanding the lived experience of Palestinians, including the humanitarian and human rights issues frequently discussed in connection with the conflict. Such visits are educational in nature.“
