On Saturday I went to the Orthodox Christian holy fire ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchure in Jerusalem. It was one of the more insane events I have experienced, for so many reasons - and I still don't have time to write about it in detail.

The ceremony began - or was supposed to begin - just after 2.00 pm. But because I was with a news photographer who was shooting the event we arrived at 9.00 am - in order to secure a good spot in the unbelievably crowded church.

While standing in a tiny area reserved for the press, I struck up a conversation with a European photographer who had arrived in Israel three weeks previously. He had not yet been out of Jerusalem, and asked me about Tel Aviv. I told him that it's very different from Jerusalem, gave him my card and told him to give me a call if he ever wanted a tour of my city. Don't make the mistake that so many foreign journalists make, I told him, of getting stuck on the Jerusalem-Ramallah route. Israel is a lot more interesting and complicated than that.

Yes, he said, I heard that there's a really big Jewish neighbourhood in Tel Aviv.

I laughed, then stopped when I saw that he wasn't joking.

Um, listen, I said. That's like saying you heard there's a big black neighbourhood in Addis Ababa.

It never ceases to amaze and worry me that so many foreign journalists assigned to Israel know nothing - really, nothing - about this country. And they are the ones who influence international opinion.