Changing Minds, One Visit to Israel at a Time

Changing Minds, One Visit to Israel at a Time

Can you change the mindset of someone who hates Israel simply by showing them the country? Not with slogans, not with debates, and not with endless fact-checking but by letting them walk the streets, meet the people, and confront the reality with their own eyes?

I believe you can. And I believe we are long overdue for a different, radical approach to fighting antisemitism: exposure to truth.

Imagine a program where individuals arrested for antisemitic attacks, vandalism, or incitement are taken, under guidance and supervision, to Israel. Not as punishment, but as education. Let them walk through Yad Vashem, where the silent ashes of Europe’s Jews tell a story no conspiracy theory can erase. Let them meet wounded veterans at Beit HaLohem in Tel Aviv and see the cost of terrorism carved into human bodies. Bring them to hospitals like Schneider Children’s or Hadassah, where Arab children are treated by Jewish doctors and nurses and Jewish children by Arab nurses and doctors, because in Israel, medicine has no religion.

Simply: show them that the world they think they understand is not black or white.

I know this works, because it worked on someone far more important to me than any extremist on the street: my son.

For years, he was deeply anti-Israel. In Dutch society, where antisemitism is rising and “Pallywood” propaganda circulates unchecked, it is not surprising. Among his friends, Israel was a dirty word. At school, Israel was the villain. At home, it was the opposite: mezuzah on the door, Israeli flags around the house, a mother whose heart aches for Jerusalem. He grew up between two completely different narratives.

So when he agreed, at 21, to visit Israel with me, I was hopeful but cautious. First impressions matter, and this was his first.

He got his first taste of reality before even boarding the plane: El Al security. Strict, professional, serious. Not aggressive, just attentive. He realized quickly that Israelis do not do security for show; they do it because they must.

We landed at Ben Gurion and drove straight to Beitar Illit in Judea, an ultra-Orthodox city where cars stop on Shabbat and black hats fill the streets. For a secular young European, it was a culture shock. His immediate fear was: “Is all of Israel like this?”

Of course, it isn’t.

Over 19 days, we drove 4,138 kilometers. We explored Tel Aviv, the Golan, kibbutzim, the Dead Sea, national parks, beaches, cities, villages, everything in between. And slowly, almost reluctantly, his worldview began to crack.

One moment changed him deeply: looking at the so-called “Palestinian” homes near Netanya. He expected poverty. Instead, he saw villas, big ones and he was stunned. “If these are Palestinian houses, they’re living fcking luxurious,”* he said. Years of one-sided media collapsed in one instant.

Another moment: watching Jews, Muslims, Christians, Russians, Ethiopians, Bedouins, tourists, and immigrants all walking together on the streets of Tel Aviv. Not segregated. Not separated. Not hostile. Just people living life.

He took a photo of the mosque near the Dan Panorama Hotel just to prove to his friends that Islam is practiced freely in Israel. He admired IDF soldiers at checkpoints, not because they were armed, but because they were disciplined and humane.

He also learned that Israel isn’t perfect, far from it. The traffic nearly killed us eight times, and Israeli drivers deserve their own chapter in the Book of Complaints. Bureaucracy is a national sport. Patience is an endangered species. And everything takes ten times longer than it should.

But he also discovered the beauty:
• Timna Park and its ancient copper pillars glowing in the sun
• The calm majesty of the Golan
• The surreal floating in the Dead Sea
• The open warmth of a kibbutz

He saw that Israel is not a “Western democracy” nor a “Middle Eastern country” but a fascinating, chaotic hybrid of both.

When the trip ended, he told me Israel was not “his cup of tea”, but his views had changed entirely. The propaganda didn’t survive contact with reality.

And that is the whole point.

Seeing is believing.

Hearing is doubting.

Israel convinces not through arguments, but through truth lived firsthand.

As for me… Israel is not just a country. It is home. Imperfect, complicated, loud, chaotic, yet extraordinary. My dream is to live and work there, no matter how difficult the path.

And so I say:  Israel…still the only shining star in a sea of darkness.

And to the world: before you judge Israel, go see it. Walk it. Feel it. Meet its people. Then decide.

You might just discover the truth.