Since Israel became a state in 1948, the Jewish people have fought nine wars against enemies intent on wiping the state off the Earth. Additionally, despite the Jewish people’s biblical connection to the land and their eternal longing to return to the “rebuilt Jerusalem,” their foes continuously campaign to delegitimize the notion that Jews are indigenous to their land.
To combat this false narrative, IDF spokesperson Maj. Doron Spielman has written the book When the Stones Speak: The Remarkable Discovery of the City of David and What Israel’s Enemies Don’t Want You To Know, to be published this May.
“We know where delegitimizing leads,” Spielman, an expert on the City of David archaeological site, told the Magazine. “And we have been there,” he said, referencing the Holocaust.
Along with Jonathan Conricus and Eylon Levy, Spielman has become a household name in Israel advocacy.
In the run-up to the publication of When the Stones Speak, the Magazine spoke with Spielman about writing his book.
The ‘hasbara’ battle is clearly difficult, due to the historical denialism promoted by the Palestinians and their allies. How do you tackle this in your book?
[I do this by] presenting the incontrovertible archaeological evidence found in the City of David, to the south of the Old City [of Jerusalem]. This site reveals that the Jewish people have a 3,800-year-old history, thus proving that they are indigenous to Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.
How did you become a member of the Spokesperson’s Office?
After I made aliyah in 2000, I joined the IDF. Four days later, the Second Intifada broke out – the bloodiest urban battle that Israel has ever faced.
I was really trained under fire. The army was caught off guard, not only militarily but specifically the media unit. I was fast-tracked by being thrown into the officers’ school for the Spokesperson’s Unit.
We were trained in messaging and media but of course, like others in the Spokespersons’ Office, my strength is that I had a lot of previous public-speaking experience, specifically on college campuses.
Since then, I have been in every major media campaign with the IDF.
How did you get the foreign press to showcase what you had to say?
For the first two to three months (and even recently due to the returning hostages), I have taken reporters to the tunnels; to Gaza and Lebanon; I have been on Fox, NBC, ABC, and CNN, etc., and done hundreds of interviews, representing Israel under fire.
At the start of the war, we were able to provide enough ‘interesting’ information to maintain the attention of international news outlets. The thing is to give them something new and to be able to grab their attention by bringing them into the field, face-to-face with the horrors of Oct. 7.
Once the narrative shifted to Gaza, however, and the foreign media had little interest in us, we pivoted to trying to give them up-to-date information and emphasizing our key talking points.
How did you manage to get CNN to put you on the air, despite what some say is its anti-Israel bias?
The only access to Gaza was through us. If CNN, for example, wanted to report from Gaza or from the kibbutzim that were attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, they had to go through the IDF.
They were happy to do so, and I had a number of very good interviews with them. For example, when they came with me to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, I made it clear that “If we are going in, then you are going to see everything.”
Right after the attack, I brought them to the homes; they picked up family photographs covered in blood. The bodies of the murdered Jews had already been removed, but there were corpses of jihadi Hamas members everywhere, and the smell… A few members of the media were heaving with nausea. After what they had experienced, they reported very favorably about Israel in the first few weeks
How do you get CNN not to twist your words?
The only way we are willing to go on any major foreign press outlet is for the program to be live – otherwise, you can end up at the whim of the editor.
How do you get to appear on various media outlets? How are you able to be heard when it’s not a friendly outlet?
At the end of the day, the media chooses where to point the camera and how it will fill the screen.
But if you do get the opportunity, the key is to balance the interview by giving them something new and, at the same time, getting across your points without sounding like you are a ‘talking head.’
Our ‘hasbara’ efforts are considered sub-par compared to those of our enemies. Can you explain that?
It is a combination of three things:
- We have improved and have excellent commanders, but there are not enough trained spokespeople; we have very good ones, but they are not enough. At the end of the day, a lot of this is about manpower. We are looking for the next generation of spokespeople.
- For years, the IDF did not prioritize communication before carrying out a military action. Until four or five years ago, the high command didn’t see the importance of communicating much afterward, either. This is changing, but not fast enough.
- There is also an imbalance in the playing field. The world accepts what the ‘Hamas Health Ministry’ says, especially since it says it right away. If we want to take longer to investigate an issue before giving an answer, well, it’s very difficult to win against the tidal wave of misinformation.
Additionally, we say the world is biased against us. We need to change the understanding of the roots we have in this land, and own them. People are listening, and if they believe that we came and stole the land from the ‘natives,’ then we need to answer that accusation and show it isn’t true.
That is what my book is about.
How do you combat the Palestinian narrative, which is premised on a series of falsehoods that people seem to believe without question?
Israel often tries to answer with facts alone. Our story is based on facts, but it is also very compelling. We are excellent at telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, but somehow we have failed to tell the story of our indigenous roots in the land.
The Balfour Declaration [of 1917, supporting a national home for the Jews] and the 1948 war [of Independence] are important. But that is not why we returned [to Israel]. We returned because this is our ancestral home. This is the key historical narrative that we must share.
There is, of course, a lot of antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred in Western media. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a job to do; we do, and that is to know and tell our story at every opportunity.
What is your connection to the City of David?
I joined the City of David in 2002. I worked there for 21 years and was actively involved in the excavations as they were unfolding.
Following the untimely passing, four years ago, of archaeologist Eilat Mazar, who discovered King David’s palace in the City of David, the archaeological pendulum has swung back to where the area is much larger than was previously thought, and the evidence of a monarch residing there is stronger than ever before.
My job was to share what I saw from the unfolding excavations. My goal was to give people the feeling that they were living history. That is what the City of David is; it is somewhere that you can go back in time.
I – along with my colleagues – have guided some of the most prominent and wealthiest people in the world, both Jewish and non-Jewish – from the US vice president to the US defense secretary, the Kushners, many cabinet secretaries in current and past US governments, members of Congress who came via AIPAC, senators, donors, and celebrities such as Jerry Seinfeld and Helen Mirren.
Often, exactly the same people I would interact with as IDF spokesperson would then come to the City of David, and I would continue with the same argument: Israel’s justification to defend itself is premised on the idea that it has a right to be here. The core evidence is there.
The City of David is not a museum where you stand four feet beyond a glass casing. My goal was to allow people to really ‘feel’ the excavations; for example, to sit inside the remaining walls of a home from the First Temple period. You feel history, and then you open your eyes and you have the sense that you are living through history in the modern day.
How would you sum up ‘When the Stones Speak’?
The proof that we have pulled out of the ground shows without a doubt that Jews are indigenous to Jerusalem and Israel.
Despite the false narrative that has been constructed over decades, this evidence predates the Palestinians, it predates Arabic as a language, and it predates Islam.
The golden bell of the Kohen Gadol by Doron Spielman
A small golden bell was found in the drainage channel directly next to the Temple Mount. It is the only pure golden bell with a chime in it found in excavations anywhere in Israel. The small clasp can still be seen on the bell, where it would have been tied to the robes of the high priest.
The fill where the bell was found has been dated directly to the Second Temple period.
If you add up all these elements, there is very little room to doubt that this was the bell from the robes of the high priest. The assumption is that during the destruction, somehow the bell must have been torn off the robes of the high priest and then rolled into the sewage grate leading into the underground water channel, where it was found by archaeologists almost 2,000 years later.
The book, available in May, can be pre-ordered: www.amazon.com.
- WHEN THE STONES SPEAK: THE REMARKABLE DISCOVERY OF THE CITY OF DAVID AND WHAT ISRAEL’S ENEMIES DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW
- By Doron Spielman
- Center Street, Hatchette Book Group
- 304 pages; $30