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Daniel Luria took us on a journey through Jerusalem's Old City that we will never forget. His organisation, Ateret Cohanim, is dedicated to keeping Jerusalem in Jewish hands. According to him, the battle over this contested holy ground is at the core of the broader conflict, an ideological struggle over what some would call real estate.

We started at Jaffa Gate, a place that Daniel says could have easily been handed over to Palestinians in a now-defunct two-state solution. "The concept of giving away the land of Israel past Jerusalem is absurd," he told us. Daniel explained how Jerusalem was a divided city and a "no man's land" between 1948 and 1967. Jews were "forbidden" from holy sites, and a Jewish cemetery was "overturned," its tombstones repurposed by Jordanians. It's only since 1967, he says, that "freedom for all religions" has existed.

Daniel showed us two hotels once owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, which Ateret Cohanim purchased more than 20 years ago. He said Arabs "weren’t crazy" about the sale, but what's often forgotten is that one of those hotels was a kosher establishment run by Jewish families until the pogroms of the 1920s and '30s.

According to Daniel, the British have "a lot to pay for" because they didn't protect the Jewish people during those pogroms. Instead of stopping the Arab violence, he says the British "took the Jews out of the old city because they couldn't protect them."

As a Christian, I felt deeply connected to thousands of years of history during today's live-streamed tour of the Holy Land in Jerusalem. Paying reverence at such a place was a great privilege, especially reciting Psalm 23 in the City of David. If you missed our candid tour you… pic.twitter.com/852Ix2phyi

— Rukshan Fernando (@therealrukshan) September 19, 2025

He showed us a picture of a British policeman "ushering the women and children out of the old city." It's "a shocking, shocking picture," he said, because it was a moment when a Jewish majority in the Old City became "zero Jews."

Throughout the tour, Daniel stressed that the conflict is not about land, but a religious war. He cited the Muslim law, or fatwa, which he described as "the most immoral, unethical, and disgraceful edict" that forbids a Muslim from selling property to a Jew. "If you sell to a Jew, you're killed," he said. This makes Ateret Cohanim's work of buying back old Jewish properties from illegal squatters incredibly difficult.

He believes the Israeli court system is "totally, totally skewed to the left" but says even they couldn't rule against the Jews in a case involving an old Yemenite synagogue that was being desecrated.

We drove through Abu Tor, a divided neighborhood with both Jewish and Arab residents. When I asked Daniel whether the Arabs living here were Israeli citizens, he explained that this area was annexed after the 1967 war, granting the residents Israeli status. "They've got a better status because they're allowed to have dual citizenship," he said, holding both Jordanian and Israeli passports.

וַאֲבָֽרֲכָה֙ מְבָ֣רְכֶ֔יךָ וּמְקַלֶּלְךָ֖ אָאֹ֑ר וְנִבְרְכ֣וּ בְךָ֔ כֹּ֖ל מִשְׁפְּחֹ֥ת הָאֲדָמָֽה׃ https://t.co/71U7iVFlmN

— Rukshan Fernando (@therealrukshan) September 22, 2025

As we stood on a rooftop with a panoramic view, Daniel told a story about a rabbi who, 2,000 years ago, smiled at the destruction of Jerusalem. The rabbi smiled because if the prophecy of destruction came true, then the prophecies of redemption must also be true.

Daniel believes this is what's happening now. He talked about how Israel is "no longer the Jew of the shtetl and the ghetto" but "the lion of Judah that is standing up for ourselves." He told me that "even if someone who doesn't believe in history or religion or God or Abraham, the Jews are being attacked. They deserve a homeland. They're being attacked. The Arabs lost the war, so we keep the land."