Oct 16, 2026 · 53 min · 17 segments
Israel’s story is bigger than the headlines. Steve the Tour Guide joins Discerning Our Days to explore the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the importance of understanding the land and its…
Josh SchwartzHostThere is a city on this Earth that has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times, and yet somehow it is still here.
It sits on a rocky plateau in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.
No great river runs through it.
No natural harbor feeds it.
The farmland around it is thin.
On paper, there is absolutely no reason this city should have survived, no reason it should matter, and certainly no reason that three of the world's major religions should consider it the most sacred place on the planet.
And yet, here we are.
Jerusalem, a city that has outlasted every empire that ever tried to hold it, prayed toward by billions, wept over, bled over, fought over in ways that have shaped the entire arc of human civilization.
Uh, Hezbollah's origins are Genesis, to borrow from the Book of Genesis [laughs] that we just saw.
Um, it goes back to Israel's invasion of Lebanon back in 19- uh, sometime in the early '80s.
I think it was 1982.
And, um, when Israel invaded Lebanon, the very first demographic they would've encountered, because it abuts the Israeli northern frontier with Lebanon, is the Shiite population of southern Lebanon.
They feted them with rice.
They would throw rice at the Israeli soldiers celebrating.
They're invading their country because the Shiites themselves couldn't stand the Sunni PLO.
Uh, the PLO had changed the demographics of Lebanon.
Lebanon was at one time a Christian majority country.
There is a city on this Earth that has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times, and yet somehow it is still here.
It sits on a rocky plateau in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.
No great river runs through it.
No natural harbor feeds it.
The farmland around it is thin.
On paper, there is absolutely no reason this city should have survived, no reason it should matter, and certainly no reason that three of the world's major religions should consider it the most sacred place on the planet.
And yet, here we are.
Jerusalem, a city that has outlasted every empire that ever tried to hold it, prayed toward by billions, wept over, bled over, fought over in ways that have shaped the entire arc of human civilization.
Uh, Hezbollah's origins are Genesis, to borrow from the Book of Genesis [laughs] that we just saw.
Um, it goes back to Israel's invasion of Lebanon back in 19- uh, sometime in the early '80s.
I think it was 1982.
And, um, when Israel invaded Lebanon, the very first demographic they would've encountered, because it abuts the Israeli northern frontier with Lebanon, is the Shiite population of southern Lebanon.
They feted them with rice.
They would throw rice at the Israeli soldiers celebrating.
They're invading their country because the Shiites themselves couldn't stand the Sunni PLO.
Uh, the PLO had changed the demographics of Lebanon.
Lebanon was at one time a Christian majority country.
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