As debates over the modern state of Israel grow sharper and antisemitism rises around the world, author and commentator Dinesh D'Souza is pointing to the ground beneath Jerusalem to make his case. In his new book and in a conversation with CBN News, he argues that biblical archaeology leaves little room for doubt about the Jewish people's roots in the land.

The book, The Stones Cry Out: Biblical Archaeology, Prophecy, and the Last Days, draws on three years of research into more than a hundred archaeological discoveries connected to the Bible, from the era of King David through the time of Jesus and the apostles. D'Souza told CBN News that the evidence "irrefutably shows the presence of the Jews in their ancient homeland."

The claim he is answering is the accusation, heard increasingly in public debate, that the Jewish people are foreign colonizers in Israel. D'Souza called that charge "very odd," likening it to accusing the Indians of colonizing India or the Irish of colonizing Ireland. "How do you colonize your own ancestral homeland?" he asked.

To make the case, D'Souza pointed to a striking find reported by the Israel Antiquities Authority this past summer: a 2,000-year-old, 25-ton Jewish ritual bath, known as a mikveh, excavated nearly totally intact. The bath points to a previously unknown Jewish settlement between the Judean Lowlands and the northern Negev, according to the IAA. D'Souza explained that such baths were used by Jews for ritual cleansing before going up to the temple, giving discoveries like this one, in his words, a political significance as well as a historical one.

The book's release comes at a tense moment. Pew Research Center data cited by CBN News shows Americans' favorability toward both the Israeli government and its people declining, with 62 percent holding unfavorable views of the Israeli government. Antisemitism has been rising in the United States since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, and the Anti-Defamation League recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in 2025 — a 33 percent drop from 2024 but still the third-highest total since the organization began tracking such incidents in 1979.

That hostility was on display this week in Dublin, where a hotel reportedly canceled a 70-room reservation for delegates attending an international conference on combating antisemitism after learning the purpose of their visit. Maurice Cohen, chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, told The Times of Israel that the manager's manner changed once the conference's purpose came up, and the rooms were canceled. Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, called the episode "a disgraceful example of the very antisemitism the conference was organized to combat."

Much of the hostility toward Israel centers on the allegation that the Jewish state is committing genocide against Palestinians. CBN News noted that this talking point has grown harder to sustain as new figures reported from the Palestinian Ministry of Health show the population in Gaza growing significantly in 2025 — data that bears watching as it is verified. Israel, meanwhile, remains on high alert ahead of its October 27 elections.

For D'Souza, the timing of these discoveries matters. He told The Christian Post that researching the book changed how he reads Scripture: "I believe that God is speaking to us in this secular age through a somewhat different language" — through stones and artifacts buried for three thousand years and only now coming out of the ground. Whether one agrees with every political conclusion drawn from the shovel's work, the stones themselves are worth hearing.