DAY 4 We start out, bottles of water in hand, for a long walking tour of the Old City. We first gain a panoramic view from the Mount of Olives, the most expensive real estate for the dead. Jewish belief has it that those buried here would have the quickest access to redemption when the Messiah comes. There is a Muslim graveyard too nearby, and the immediate environs have representations of different Christian missions.
We make our way to the Tower of David, the part of the Old City historically most susceptible to invasion. Already, our guide—a working archaeologist whose family immigrated from Baghdad—has acquainted us with the Israeli ‘‘mania’’ for digging. At the Tower of David can be found a magnificent model that is replicated across the land at sites of antiquity. The story of the interaction between Judaism, Christianity and Islam is first recounted in a short film, and then through exhibits in a museum housed in the historical site. Modern display and reclamation and cafes exist within old walls and courtyards. History is not apart from the lived life.
Then it’s a walk through the Armenian Quarter—Armenians, most of them Christian, are reported to have been in Jerusalem since the fifth century, and posters are up about the 1915 ‘‘genocide’’. Later at the Jewish Quarter, the streets are more organised. Houses in this area are newer, since the older buildings had been destroyed in 1948 and were rebuilt after 1967.
So much else remains to be seen, but we are too late by the usual timetable to gain entry to the Temple Mount. But as we near the makeshift bridgeway to the Mount at Magharib Gate (the only entrance for non-Muslims), security guards say we can go up. As we run along on the ramp, we take in the view to the left, the male and decidedly smaller female sections of the Western Wall, where believers write their prayers on pieces of paper and insert them into the crevices between the gigantic Herodian stones. Temple Mount came into the news in 2000 when Ariel Sharon paid a controversial visit, sparking what is called the Second Intifada. These days, newspaper reports are abuzz about repair work by the Waqf trust, which controls the Mount. It has, they report, excavated ceramic tableware from the First Temple period. The quietness of the plateau-like Mount takes a little getting used to after the bustle of the Old City.
Afternoon takes us to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Two colleagues are held up by security as they are in violation of a new rule disallowing jeans in the compound. It takes a few minutes for the rule to be waived, and passing a photograph of Golda Meir holding a lit cigarette reminds me of one of the many, possibly apocryphal, anecdotes about her. A visitor met her seated under a no-smoking sign but puffing away. A local explained, the choice during her premiership was to either disallow smoking and have only her violate the request, or to let everyone smoke. They took the first option. It is also an innocuous reminder of Robert Kaplan’s caution: ‘‘Self-interest at its healthiest implicitly recognises the self-interest of others, and therein lies the possibility of compromise—and realism. A moral position admits few compromises. That’s some of what I took away from Israel.’’

... contd.