Old City in Jerusalem
Old City in JerusalemIsrael news photo: Shimon Cohen

A freed Arab terrorist poses as a tour guide and tell tourists that Old City Jews stole Arab homes, Jerusalem resident Aryeh King revealed to Israel National News.

King, a former kibbutz member who lives in eastern Jerusalem, praised a new proposal that would bar non-Israelis from leading large tour groups. Israeli citizenship has been rejected by approximately 90 percent of the Arabs living in areas in Jerusalem restored to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Kadima Knesset Member Gideon Ezra began to table a new bill that would implement the requirement for Israeli citizenship for Jerusalem tour guides, but he then said he was postponing the move in order not to interfere with the prospect for a resumption of direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

The bill, co-sponsored by several National Union, Kadima and Likud MKs, would ban non-Israelis from leading groups of more than 11 tourists and also would apply when smaller groups travel in more than one vehicle.

King revealed that innocent tourists walking through the Jaffa Gate, a main entrance to the Old City, often are met by a dark-skinned man with a short beard who poses as a tour guide, complete with an official Tourism Ministry badge.

The man actually is a former Arab terrorist, King said, adding that many tourists, especially those from Russia and Asia, often cannot distinguish between an Arab and a Jew.

“I personally have joined his tours,” King said. “He takes tourists to the Jewish Quarter and explains to them that Arabs used to live there until Jews stole their homes and land. I did not let him get away with it, and when I made members of the group realize he was a terrorist, many of them left. We tried to take action against him through the Tourism Ministry, but he continues to corner tourists.”

He said Arab tour guides who are not Israelis cause irreparable damage. “Imagine a guide takes tourists to the Temple Mount and does not tell them that the Jewish Temple once existed there,” King added.

He cited one instance at the Mount of Olives view point, named after murdered Tourism Minister Rechevam Ze'evi. “It is terrible when tourists ask a tour guide who Ze’evi was, and he answers that he was a man responsible for murder of Arabs and that despite his crimes, Israel honored him.”