On June 16, as Benjamin Netanyahu continued his yearlong challenge to Joe Biden over the war in Gaza, eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives and two congressional staffers arrived at the luxurious Kempinski Hotel in Tel Aviv for four days of immersion in Israeli politics, Politico reported in an investigation published Wednesday.

Lawmakers and aides toured Israel and met with a range of speakers who largely align with the Israeli prime minister's right-wing views — including Netanyahu himself.

The trip, like hundreds of others over the past decade, was hosted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which calls itself “America’s pro-Israel lobby,” one of the most influential lobbying organizations in the United States that promotes the Israeli government’s agenda.

After a nearly five-month hiatus following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, AIPAC-funded travel has resumed at a rapid pace this year, with eight trips by 71 House members and staffers from early March through early September. Slightly more Republicans traveled on AIPAC-organized, AIPAC-funded travel during that period than Democrats.

“Now, as lawmakers face pressure from both sides over U.S. aid — with critics like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling for a halt to arms sales in the face of Israel’s assault on Lebanon and supporters like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) demanding more funding for Israel to bolster its defenses — members are drawing on lessons learned from their travels at AIPAC to shape their views of Israel,” the magazine says in its investigation.

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), who has made two trips to AIPAC since September 2023 and benefited from $6 million in independent spending (on his campaign against pro-Palestinian candidate Donna Edwards) from AIPAC in his first run for Congress in 2022, said his time in Israel was valuable in understanding what it means to have a U.S.-Israeli partnership.

“It helps to try to get out and see things firsthand,” Ivey said. For example, Ivey said the most powerful moments of his June trip were meeting the families of hostages and visiting the site of a music festival where dozens of civilians were killed or wounded.

While the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is known for sponsoring trips for lawmakers and aides to Israel in an attempt to “build support for the Jewish state,” the full extent of the trip was not known until now.

A new analysis of thousands of records shows that Israel, thanks to AIPAC, is the top destination for privately sponsored foreign travel by members of Congress and their aides.

According to a study by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland, which is publishing its findings in partnership with Politico, more than a quarter of the approximately 4,100 privately sponsored trips abroad since 2012 were to Israel.

This means that the number of flights to Israel is greater than the number of flights to the entire Western Hemisphere and the continent of Africa combined.

The Howard Center has created a database of all House travel over the past decade. Each of the roughly 17,000 trips represents travel by a representative or House staffer, either alone or as part of a delegation and sometimes accompanied by a family member. The vast majority of the trips—at least three out of every four—were by staffers, who play important roles in shaping policy and drafting legislation.

The Senate, which is much smaller than the House, reported that its members and staff took more than 2,600 trips during the same period, but the Senate’s disclosure forms don’t list who sponsored the trips, which everyone knows AIPAC does. Sponsors or destinations are in a format that can be easily analyzed.

In addition to travel disclosures, nonprofit tax records and lobbying registrations, the Howard Center’s examination of House travel used data collected by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan government watchdog, and public affairs information platform LegiStorm, to document the extensive links between lobbyists and travel sponsors.

Critics contend that the trips left lawmakers with a one-sided understanding of U.S.-Israel relations and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — one that reinforces the current Israeli government's hardline policies toward the Palestinians.

“Whoever frames the debate wins the debate,” said former Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a progressive Jewish American politician and critic of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which helped engineer his defeat in 2022.

The vast majority of trips to Israel — about 75 percent — were sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, an AIPAC affiliate.

AIPAC’s use of the American Israel Education Foundation allows it to legally circumvent a 2007 law that limits direct lobbying participation in most privately sponsored trips. An exception in the law allows certain 501(c)(3) organizations like the American Israel Education Foundation to sponsor the travel.

AIPAC lobbied for this exception, known by some as the "AIPAC loophole," and without this exception, AIPAC would be restricted to sponsoring only one-day trips as an organization that employs lobbying staff.

While other organizations exploited the “AIPAC loophole,” AIPAC monopolized what House members and staff saw and heard on their trips to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

AIPAC spokesman Marshall Whitman declined multiple interview requests, but responded in a written statement to what he called the Howard Center's "mischaracterizations of our travels."

“AIEF-sponsored trips help educate political leaders from both parties about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship through first-hand experiences in Israel, briefings from Middle East experts, and meetings with Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum,” Whitman wrote.

“The trips uniquely focus on policy and a broad range of issues related to U.S.-Israel cooperation including regional security, technology, health, and science.”

“In the wake of the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, these trips provide Members of Congress with a deeper understanding of the threats Israel faces from Iranian terrorist proxies on its borders. Members of Congress have indicated that they have found these trips extremely helpful in giving them a unique perspective on the challenges facing the United States and our ally Israel in a critical region.”

The trips to Israel are just one part of a multi-pronged strategy to advance Israel’s interests. AIPAC hosts an annual conference for elected officials in the Washington, D.C., area, which former Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) has called “the largest gathering of members of Congress” other than the State of the Union.

AIPAC spent nearly $100 million this election year to ensure that pro-Israel candidates would win outright, the organization said in its campaign statements.

Yet AIPAC’s extensive recruitment of members and staff to travel to Israel—which costs more than $10 million, based on U.S. tax dollars, according to Legstrom’s 2012-2023 data—demonstrates the importance AIPAC places on its travel program. Nearly half of current members of the House of Representatives have traveled with the organization since 2012, according to a Howard Center analysis.

Among them is first-term Congressman Ivey, who defeated former Rep. Donna Edwards in the 2022 primary, in which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s political action committee spent $6 million on his behalf.

Ivey’s first trip was with eight other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They arrived in Jerusalem on September 2, 2023, (a month before the October 7 attacks). Ivey said in an interview that they met with senior Israeli officials, but that the Palestinian perspective was missing from the trip.

The itinerary included a meeting with a Palestinian-Israeli peace activist, “but not with people from Gaza, not the Palestinian Authority,” Ivey said. “So the focus was very much on Israel and Israeli politics.”

Ivey's visit was the second of a trip by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee this June, which in addition to focusing on Israeli policy included multiple sessions on the October 7, 2023 attacks. Ivey said that when they arrived in Israel, the airport was "filled with pictures and faces of the hostages who had been taken."

Although Ivy said the group met with Israeli Palestinians, the trip did not include a visit to Gaza or the West Bank.

Like previous AIPAC-sponsored trips before October 7, Ivey and the rest of the delegation also met with senior Israeli officials including Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz, according to the itinerary listed on his disclosure forms.

But on this trip, Ivey said, “the focus was completely different.”

During his September 2023 trip, he said there was a stronger focus on “trying to figure out… potential paths to a two-state solution.”

Asked whether the possibility of a two-state solution was still a topic of discussion or consideration in June, Ivey said, according to Politico, that he was not supposed to share details of the meetings.

But outside the United States, he added, "there are a lot of people who doubt that it is possible."

“I think that’s true in Israel. I think that’s true … among many Palestinians,” he said. “A lot of people are skeptical or have questions about whether this is still a realistic option.”

AIPAC spent $68,000 to cover Ivey's two trips, which included luxury accommodations. Ivey was joined on his first trip by his wife.

According to Federal Election Commission data, AIPAC spent $6 million in independent spending during Ivey’s 2022 primary. Ivey’s campaign also benefited from about $750,000 in contributions sent by supporters through another AIPAC-affiliated organization, and more than $400,000 in outside spending from another pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, a front for the Israel lobby in the United States.

Effie voted in favor of the military aid package for Israel on April 20, which his staff said reflected his desire to help Israel defend itself and ensure additional humanitarian aid flows to Gaza.

Among those who declined interview requests were Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat. Levin traveled to Israel three times between 2012 and 2023, twice with AIPAC and once with J Street.

During the same period, Jeffries traveled to Israel four times with AIPAC, most recently leading a Democratic delegation in August 2023.

AIPAC takes the position that being pro-Israel means supporting the Israeli government, which for much of the 21st century has meant supporting the right-wing policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu, said Dov Waxman, a professor and director of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Among the achievements touted on its website, AIPAC credits its efforts in recent years with Congress continuing to fund billions of dollars in unconditional military and security aid to Israel and increasing sanctions on Iran. AIPAC has also lobbied Congress to limit the ability of individuals and companies to participate in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli companies and support for Israel’s continued war on Gaza.