David Smith – June 2026

Today was my big day in Jerusalem. We visited the holy sites — in particular the Al Aqsa Mosque — which has been at the centre of many of the conflicts in Jerusalem and indeed in the whole region. I have never much wanted to visit the holy sites, but this was memorable.

Mike drove me to the front of the Mosque compound and dropped me off to wait for Yahav who was my host again today. We headed straight for the Al Aqsa mosque area. While I waited for Yahav I took pictures. The Israeli military do not like one to take pictures of them. I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t want to be identified or because they don’t want to be shown wearing machine guns – which they always do – I did take a picture of one of the guards however was waved off when I tried to take a picture of a second guard even though they would have been incidental to the picture.

There was a lot of security but we entered with little trouble. My whiteness and Yahav’s Jewishness undoubtedly helped. My artificial hip set off the alarms but once I explained they didn’t pat me down or go over me with the wand. The religious history of the site is well known to many but as someone who was brought up as an atheist (not a evangelical one) I have been relatively oblivious to it. I can’t go into the details of it — these can be found on Wikipedia — though some of those not according to what I learned from Yahav today — completely in accord with common understanding.

On our way in one of the first things we passed was the Western wall where we could see Jews praying with the men and women in different sections.

One of these details is that for Moslems, the whole square inside the compound circled in blue in my picture is the Mosque and the golden domed Temple and the other building on the right of the picture are shrines within the mosque. Before some of the conflicts it was possible for non-Moslems to enter the shrine and see the actual Dome of the Rock inside the Shrine where Mohammad is said to have ascended to heaven.

Another very interesting insight that Yahav gave me was that the meaning of “Moslem” actually refers to those who believe in the “one god” so the Jews are or were from this perspective Moslems.

While it is impossible to fully understand the conflicts over this site without understanding the religious history I will not attempt to go any further into this here because there are better sources and the deeper I go the more mistakes I will make.

The agreement about the Al Aqsa mosque has a long history.The longstanding agreement about it was that it was restricted to Moslems. Ariel Sharon sparked the 2nd Intifida when he 2000 when he entered Al Aqsa and made a speech. Now the compound is policed by Israeli soldiers and it is common to see Jews in the compound escorted by soldiers.

Israel took control of the Mosque when it occupied Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

After we left the compound for to look out over Jerusalem I stopped in for a washroom break at the King David hotel. The hotel is perhaps most famous as the location where Menachem Begin’s Irgun group bombed the hotel killing 91 people. Inside the hotel — aside from very fine washrooms which — after some thought I refrained from photographing. On the floor of the hotel there is a display of signatures of many luminaries — many of them war criminals — who have stated at the hotel. Apparently Henry Kissinger’s signature is there but i was unable to find it. However I did find Donald Trump’s, Bill and Hilary Clinton. While the tiles undoubtedly include other unsavoury characters like Nelson Rockefeller they also include progressives such as Simone de Beauvoir and Eleanor Roosevelt as well as artists like the Black Eyed Peas

Throughout its history Israel has conducted a systematic effort to make it impossible for Palestinians to live in Jerusalem. This effort intensified after the 1967 6-day war. Even before the border wall. Our last stop was the Mount of Olives where we could overlook Jerusalem. Israel’s strategy everywhere has been to isolate Palestinian neighbourhoods and communities and leave them without resources. Where before the 1967 war Palestinians lived all around the Aqsa Mosque as of today, they have been pushed out to the East living only in the areas surrounded by and below the Jewish settlements as can be seen.

For much of his life, David Smith has been driven by a simple belief: lasting peace begins with listening, understanding, and standing alongside others. A lifelong advocate for social justice and human rights, he has spent decades supporting peace initiatives, community movements, and nonprofit causes. His journey to Palestine reflects the same values that have guided his work throughout the years, a desire to learn, witness, and share stories that too often go unheard.