A tourist poses for photos while riding a camel on the Mount of Olives overlooking the old city of Jerusalem on June 12, 2023. Photo by JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images

Amid a year of historic protests in Israel, new data suggests that American tourism to Israel has hit a new peak, with U.S. tourists flocking to the country in greater numbers than before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, 12% more American travelers visited Israel in 2023 than had by the same point in 2019.

In a year when hundreds of thousands of Israelis expressed their opposition to a proposed judicial overhaul that would undermine Israel’s democratic institutions, the uptick in American tourism to Israel suggests that despite the U.S. government’s concern over the developments, affinity with Israel remains strong in the U.S., Israel’s most important ally.

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“These statistics are extremely encouraging,” Israeli Commissioner of Tourism to North America Eyal Carlin said in a press release.

Despite an increase in American tourism to Israel, the Israeli tourism industry has struggled to rebound from the lean years of the pandemic: The number of visitors to Israel overall continues to fall short of pre-pandemic levels.

While a record 4.55 million people visited Israel in 2019, Israeli officials project that only 3.9 million tourists will travel to Israel this year.

The Ministry of Tourism also announced that while the number of American tourists during June — when Israel experienced a significant heatwave in addition to major protests over the proposed judicial reforms — increased by 13% compared to 2019, the overall number of tourists to Israel that same month decreased by over 40,000 people.

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