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| 2018 Flag Dance March at Damascus Gate in the old city (JP) |
This should not be news to anyone who reads this blog regularly. I have made my feelings known here many times. Usually around this time of year when Israelis celebrate that event. I repeat it again to make it clear how strongly I feel about that momentous event in light of an upcoming event. The feeling of joy and gratitude to God and his ‘agents’ the IDF for enabling that return is immeasurable.
And yet I find myself agreeing with Israeli left. I cannot protest the Jerusalem Flag Dance march celebrating that event enough. It is scheduled for this Thursday - delayed from its original date due to the mini-war with Gaza!. Form the Jewish Press:
…leftist Israeli politicians are calling to cancel the “do over” march.
Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben-Barak claimed while speaking at a “Culture Shabbat” event hosted by Daphna Liel in Modi’in on Saturday the rescheduled event is an attempt to “thwart the change government.”
“We are at the beginning of difficult days in which a lot of pressure and attempts will be made to thwart the change government, but in the end, a new era will begin here. The will to form a government that will unite the division in Israeli society will overcome all attempts to thwart it,” Ben-Barak tweeted.
One may ask, how can I be so overjoyed at the return of this holy area into our hands and at the same time protest celebrating it?
The answer is that I do not protest celebrating it at all. I just protest the way it is being celebrated. To put it the way Ben-Barak did:
“It’s not a Flag Dance March,” he wrote in a separate tweet, “it’s a March of Matchsticks.”
He is right.
If it hasn’t been clear until now how Palestinians feel about us… if it hasn’t been made clear that the Arab in the street considers Israel an illegitimate country colonized by European Jews at the expense of indigenous Arabs (now called Palestinians) - the violent reaction to Israel’s defensive tactics in Gaza by even Israeli Arabs living together with Jews in mixed neighborhoods for years should have spelled it out in bold relief.
They do not want Jews in their country. Arabs are a religious people consisting mostly of devout Muslims. To them Israel is a contradiction to their theology. Which grants the land to them. Jews are considered occupiers - usurpers of their land. If they could they would expel us all. To the extent that they tolerate us is to the extent that they know they can’t do it. It is a physical impossibility – tried several times since Israel’s founding over 70 years ago - to complete and utter failure. They resent us for that.
Let me quickly add that not all Israeli Arabs feel this way. Many (most?) Israeli Arabs are quite happy with their personal status quo. They do not want to change a thing about it. Many of them actually oppose a 2 state solution. Asked if they would move to a Palestinian state in any such eventuality - many of them would answer that they would reject it out of hand. They are living well and prospering. But in the back of their minds, Palestinian pride still exists. Which came out in some of them with a vengeance during Israel’s latest defensive tactics in Gaza.
It is for this reason that I oppose that march. There is nothing gained by waving the Israeli flag in their faces. That just makes them angry.
What is gained by doing that? How is any Israeli’s life made better by it? How does that make our current status in the world any better? How does it promote peace and tranquility?
The answer is it does not do any of those things. It does the opposite. That in years past they had this march without incident may be true. But that doesn’t mean the Arabs living in Jerusalem liked it. They just put up with it.
I don’t know if anything would happen if they go ahead as planned this year. But why take the chance? To show them whose boss?! To tell them that we are here to stay and there is nothing they can do about it?!
I think they know that. We don’t need to remind them. All this march will accomplish is to reignite the anger they expressed during the recent Gaza defensive. We saw the violence their anger brought out in some of them. Do we really need more of that?
It’s true that a lot of their militants don’t need much of an excuse to attack us. But why give them any excuse at all?
My advice to these flag wavers is to stay home and wave their flags there. Israel will still be in charge of east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. And by staying home they may just save a Jewish life or two in the process.