Israel’s Security Cabinet decided last night to reschedule the annual Jerusalem Flag March to this upcoming Tuesday in order to give the police more time to prepare.
They did so after the police initially cancelled the march, which was set to take place on Thursday, due to threats from Hamas. Nonetheless, it is unknown at this time if the police will approve the march.
It’s true that Hamas views the march as a provocation, but then, Hamas sees the existence of a Jewish state as a provocation. Does that mean we should pack our bags?
By Eytan Meir, IM TIRZU
(June 8, 2021 / JNS) On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion made the fateful decision to declare the establishment of the State of Israel. He did so despite immense pressure opposing the move and the prophecies of doom regarding the nascent Jewish state.
Ben-Gurion passed the test that the State of Israel, 73 years later, has failed.
The Israel Police on Monday canceled the annual Jerusalem flag march celebrating the reunification of the city following the 1967 Six-Day War. Originally scheduled for Jerusalem Day, May 10, the event was canceled amid the violent disturbances in the city and the launching of rocket attacks by Hamas. It was then rescheduled for this Thursday, before being canceled again.
The police decision came in the wake of immense pressure after Hamas threatened renewed violence should the march take place. Defense Minister Benny Gantz, along with many other politicians, media outlets and public figures, called for its cancellation.
While their fears are understandable, to prevent Jews from marching in their own capital is an abdication of our moral and national responsibility. It is taking the easy route rather than standing up for what’s right.
Hamas’s threat is serious and cannot be dismissed, but as history proves, appeasement is a misguided policy that sows the seeds of the next, more destructive conflict.
It’s true that Hamas views the march as a provocation, but that doesn’t mean that we need to follow their lead and adopt their view. To them, the mere existence of a Jewish state is a provocation—does that mean we should pack our bags and leave?
If Hamas threatens to bomb Israeli cities in the event that Jews visit the Temple Mount or Western Wall, does that mean we should bar Jews from these sites? Where do we draw the line?
The answer is that we draw it where our values dictate, and not where Hamas or any other terrorist group dictates. To quote Ze’ev Jabotinsky, “We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet agree with it or not.”
Allowing law-abiding citizens to peacefully celebrate the reunification of their capital city is moral and just, on both the individual and national levels.
Furthermore, the decision to cancel the march has wider implications and is indicative of a much larger problem.
We live in a time when the Jews of Lod, Ramle, Jaffa and Akko are being called “settlers” and targeted simply for being Jews. When Israeli soldiers serving in Jaffa’s Military Court of Appeals are being told not to wear their uniforms in public so as to not provoke the local Arabs. When the IDF is canceling navigation exercises in the Negev out of fear of attacks by Bedouin. And when marching in Jerusalem with an Israeli flag is considered a provocative act worthy of condemnation.
As Jews around the world are removing their kippahs and hiding signs of their Jewishness due to rising anti-Semitism, Israel needs to stand up and lead by example. It needs to send a clear message to Jews around the world that we will not cower or be ashamed of our Jewishness. Unfortunately, canceling the Jerusalem march sends the opposite message.
It is always easier to back down than to stand up for what’s right. By canceling the march, we sacrificed what’s right for what’s easy.
What would have happened if this mindset had prevailed in 1948? Fortunately, Ben-Gurion had the courage and understood his moral responsibility to do what needed to be done, even if it wasn’t an easy decision.
This is a lesson we need to internalize now more than ever.
Eytan Meir is the director of external relations and development for Im Tirtzu, Israel’s largest grassroots Zionist organization and one of the organizers of the flag march. He can be reached at eytan@imti.org.il.
Ben Gvir successfully provoked unrest by the Damascus Gate:
Have the March but do it prudently! No need to March thru the Muslim Quarter.
What will that accomplish besides for stirring up violence within Israel.
Peloni1986 is right!. cancelling a flag parade is an affront to democracy and does nothing to alleviate the hatred and ill will of the anti-semites who will only demand more ‘sacrifices’ from us. It puts Israel into a losing stand.
You don’t negotiate with or appease terrorists. You wipe them out.
Avigdor2
@Reader
It is a task of immorality to ask a man to sacrifice his loved ones or his values as they are each an immutable part of himself. I have a need of both and I would not be parted with either regardless of the cost to me or them.
Regarding the loss of life in the next war, the cost of such accommodations as you seek with these Arabs is the cause of the deaths that you would burden both I and Tanna and the parade goers. In times of war, men, women and children will likely die. Every life is both a rare gift and vitally sacred and every murder is both a foul tragedy and preventable crime.
But the crime is neither mine, nor Tanna’s, nor Ben-Gvir’s. We only support the right to celebrate the unification of our ancient lands under the authority of the Jewish people which the law should support, and your unkind suggestions otherwise speak poorly of you. In truth, the fault you seek to source does not even lie with the Arabs either – they foam at the thought to do such harms as their untempered nature does allow, but they have been fed too much hope of our surrender in these matters by past accommodation of principle, too often made.
Past accommodations is the criminal act and the perpetrators of these acts warrant the blame of which you speak. The crime is due to a lack of resolve, an iron wall, as described by Jabotinsky, to resist such accommodations. Indeed, the reason Gaza both exists and remains are each an attempted accommodation, a lack of resolve and a breach of such an iron wall of principle, as you would suggest be made of the Flag Parade, that was illegally based and momentarily useful. I have written an explanation of the law and how simple violations spin to unpleasant ends, but I believe a better explanation lies in the writhing of Ze’ev Jabotinksy:
The doctrine of accommodation is the breach of the Iron Wall. It emboldens the Arabs of today with hope of our capitulation tomorrow – tomorrow’s dead are the cost of today’s accommodations. Indeed, the breach of the Iron Wall is why Gaza exists. It is why nothing will save those whose lives are already lost to the next war. It is a lack of resolve and a willingness to bend that breaches our Iron Wall while our that of our enemies remain high. We will lose if we do not learn to abandon such accommodations, and, rather, regain the resolve of our principles to shatter the hopes of our enemies and make certain of our future victory.
@Tanna
And you are someone who will needlessly sacrifice Jewish lives (the last time I looked, it wasn’t listed as a mitzvah).
You, of course, may think anything you want about me or about anybody or anything else, but you seem to have just enough thinking capacity for quotations and swear words.
Tanna, I am left humbled by your generous words of support. I truly thank you.
Peloni1986….
the Rabbi’s teach us…. when there is not a man…. stand up and be a man. The Torah teaches us to pursue justice, as a deer thirst for water. We love you for taking your stand.
READER….. your a @#(%^#_+! from reading your post , I would also think you hate God, Torah and Israel
@peloni
Even if among the victims were members of your own family?
You would sacrifice even them for your principles?
Those who insist on conducting this march because doing otherwise hurts their pride are treating the symptoms instead of the cause.
I think it would be much better to quietly take care of the cause (which may take time) than to try and to childishly assuage the hurt feelings by stupid actions which may endanger the whole country.
@Reader
See also:
Israeli Sovereignty Is Being Tested by Extortion and Threats
By Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, BESA
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Surrendering to Hamas threats and canceling the flag parade in Jerusalem constitutes a grave violation of Israeli sovereignty that will lead to no less serious acts of extortion on the political and security levels.
https://www.israpundit.org/israeli-sovereignty-is-being-tested-by-extortion-and-threats/
@Reader
Of course, I won’t. I am actually taken aback to think anyone would suggest I should be. So, no, Reader, I will not feel any guilt at all, and nor should you. Guilt should be associated with doing harm or committing an error or crime. It should be reserved for those with the hate in their hearts and the finger on the trigger – not for people celebrating their national identity.
Just as those who died during this recent terrorist attack, I will fill sorrow for the innocents that die in the attack for they were as innocent of thier murder as you or I. If any would bear a responsibility, it would be the international pay masters who fund the terrorist, the teachers who create the terrorists, Hamas who organize the terrorists, and even the innocent Gazans who tolerate the terrorists. But not their victims. Not you. And not I.
Though our history is replete with such gestures of subservience to a dominant body of Jew-Haters, we should not be so craven as to allow such practices to exist with the State of Israel, not even just to keep the peace, not even to forestall an attack, not even to put off a war. Should we so badly desire peace at any price, we could just give our enemies the state and hope they don’t kill too many of us for delaying the issue.
What Ben-Gvir and those supporting the parade are doing is neither criminal nor inciting violence from others. That they should be cowed from conducting such basic celebration of their history is obnoxious and such use of police authority to prevent them should not be tolerated. Rather, the crime lies with those who would sell their liberties so cheaply, while thinking themselves lucky to have sacrificed so little by compromising to terrorism.
I watched the video that Ted recently posted of Lapid giving a speech about the Holocaust. If you have not seen it, it is very moving and carries a very important message. In this video he talks about those who willingly walked onto the trains that led to their deaths. The final line of his speech was:
Something I think each of us should wake every day and consider what that statement really means.
@peloni
Will you feel even a little bit guilty if this proud Zionist march that you are so ardently calling for is met with another 4,000 rockets which will cause a few Israelis are killed or maimed including small children and another round of lynchings and firebombings from Israeli Arabs?
Such victories, both great and small, so easily granted to our enemies lead to our ruin. The exchange for such poor strategy is disastrous regardless of the momentary quiet such surrenders may temporize.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/307786
It is reproachable that this conversation on the Flag March ever began, much less that it was cancelled and reconsidered in the context of political considerations. Israel is a state like no other, this is true on many points of explanation. But among the reasons of support for that statement being accurate should not include neither that the political leadership lacks the will or ability, nor that the Police lack the authority or capability, to allow for the citizens of the state to display in a civil demonstration of support for a Zionist celebration within the Zionist capital of the Zionist state, not even for one day where it was pre-arranged and had been conducted for years. This is wrong on every plane of reason available. To surrender such nationalistic displays to offset violent threats will be felt with a sting of greater threats. All of the warped discussions of Arab and American considerations at sensitive moments reveals a lack of self-awareness and self-respect that is mandatory of any nation to survive the ill-wind of the non-state advocates. Otherwise, such piecemeal surrenders of small but significant standards of the nation-state will continue to reward those international and national elements that seek our ruin, step-by-step, towards their intended goal.