In Jerusalem, You Kill Lies by Walking

We’re used to making arguments with words, ideas and images. We’re not used to making them by asking people to go for a walk.

But here in Jerusalem, there’s no better counterargument to the biggest lies against Israel than a simple stroll.

I did plenty of strolling on Friday morning when my friend Rabbi Pini Dunner, of Young Israel of North Beverly Hills, invited me to join his group on a visit to the Western Wall Tunnels in the City of David, including the newly discovered Pilgrimage Road, which is not yet opened to the public.

Hidden from view beneath the Arab neighborhood of Silwan, this underground road leads all the way to the foot of the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. We were reenacting a 2,000-year-old journey when Jewish pilgrims once ascended along this ancient path to reach the holy Temple.

But it wasn’t only the Pilgrimage Road that connected us to our ancestors. There were also the letters. Time and again, our guide would show us examples of Hebrew letters inscribed on an ancient stone, the same Hebrew letters one could read in that morning’s Jerusalem Post.

So, when you see one of those endless lies on social media about a colonialist Israel with no indigenous connection to the land, you may want to suggest they go for a walk on those ancient stones.

Another stubborn lie against Israel is that it’s an apartheid state that suppresses the rights of Arabs. Apartheid, you’ll recall, was the term used to describe the segregation of Blacks in South Africa, who were deprived of any political and civil rights.

You can easily counter that lie by pointing out that Arabs in Israel have full rights to vote and be elected in the Knesset, that they work as lawyers and doctors and serve on the Supreme Court.

But those are just words.

You can really feel the dishonesty of the apartheid lie when you see Muslims in religious garb strolling leisurely through Jerusalem, including shopping at Tommy Hilfiger and Nike stores on Mamilla Mall. One thing you won’t see on the faces of these Israeli Arabs is any fear of being among Jews.

Arabs in Israel may still commemorate the birth of Israel as a Nakba (catastrophe), but that Nakba still allows them to live and walk freely through Israeli society. And it’s not only Arabs. Walking around Jerusalem helps you see the cultural multitudes that populate the Jewish state, with faces of every color and ethnicity.

These are days of high anxiety in Israel. The ongoing war in Gaza is only part of it; there’s also the threat of a much nastier war with Hezbollah. And then of course there’s the mother of all threats—a nuclear Iran sworn to Israel’s destruction.

These threats come from Arabs and Muslims who don’t live in Israel. I wonder if they realize that if they were Israeli citizens, they’d be free to be doctors and lawyers and walk around Mamilla Mall; and free to pray in any of the hundreds of mosques in Israel. In fact, as I walked towards the Kotel the other night, I was greeted by a loud call on public speakers– the muezzin call to Muslim prayer.

The apartheid lie is so absurd it became a running joke as I wandered through Jerusalem with a friend. At the King David Hotel, an Arab maître’d recognized me from many years ago. I wondered how long he had been working there. Twenty years? I asked. He made a gesture with his hand to keep going. He’s been working there for 47 years. Ask him about apartheid.

Perhaps the ugliest lie against Israel is the lie of genocide. Given the defensive war against Hamas that was forced on Israel after the massacre of Oct. 7, this lie has been recklessly bandied around everywhere by Zionophobic Jew haters.

Genocide, in case you were wondering, is defined as the deliberate killing of a large nation or ethnic group with the aim of completely destroying that group. Strolling through Jerusalem and seeing so many Arabs walk freely is a first sign of the lie. But let’s look at the actual numbers: Between 1950 and 2024, the population of Arab Palestinians, covering both Israel and the Palestinian territories, has grown from 944,807 to 5,494,964. That’s an increase of about 4.5 million people. In Gaza itself, the population has grown from 265,800 in 1960 to 2.1 million in 2023. Some genocide.

Israel may be good at a lot of things, including exhibiting and reaffirming its ancient connection to the land, but it’s not very good at apartheid or genocide. You just need to go for a walk.