The March of the Zionist Flags
Y. Red, 29.05.2025
A Haaretz editorial (in Hebrew) refers to the murderous racism that characterizes Israelis. The article says:
"The flag parade, the day before. A sane state does not call for the Nakba. A sane country does not celebrate the killing of children in Gaza – with the status of ministers and municipal funding. But Israel is celebrating. Sanity seems like a distant memory
The parade of flags, the day before. A sane state does not call for the Nakba. A sane country does not celebrate the killing of children in Gaza, with the status of ministers and municipal funding. But Israel is celebrating. Sanity seems like a distant memory
The new hit that conquered this year's "Flag Parade" on Jerusalem Day, alongside the well-known classics "May Your Village Burn Down", "Muhammad is Dead" and "Death to Arabs", is "In Gaza there are no schools, there are no children left there". On the face of it, once again, this is just a racist and repulsive song. Is "Death to Arabs" less terrible than the new song? Still, it's hard to ignore the explicit, jubilant mention of dead children. And it is also hard to ignore the fact that these calls have been heard in a country that has been collectively denying the very death of children in Gaza for several weeks.
This week, an entire country, from all sides, organized to cast doubt on the fact that the IDF killed nine brothers and sisters, all under the age of 12, in a single attack. Last week, Democratic Leader Yair Golan caused a storm when he said that "a sane country does not kill babies as a hobby." This is a statement whose intention is clear — and yet, only a few have refrained from participating in the circus of condemnation against him.
The sweeping attack on Golan proved better than anything else that his words touched an exposed nerve. The public is suppressing what Israel is doing in Gaza: tens of thousands of people have been killed, the vast majority of whom are not members of Hamas, including about 18,000 children. Even those who recognize the numbers convince themselves that the killing of the children is "collateral damage" and inevitable. But then tens of thousands of participants in the "Flag Parade" come and prove that the exact opposite is true: the killing of children in Gaza is not an unfortunate by-product, but rather a racist aspiration that the crowd expresses loudly and jubilantly as it marches through the streets of the capital.
"There is no school in Gaza, there are no children left there" – this is a celebration of genocide. A sane state does not condemn those who wonder about the killing of children, but rather those who celebrate this killing. But Israel, as we saw again on Jerusalem Day, is losing its sanity.
A racist and violent mob exists in every society. But in Israel, he sits at the government table and dictates policy. Therefore, it is impossible to dismiss the events of the "Flag Parade" on the grounds that it is a marginal phenomenon. The hero of the marchers is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He is not only accepted by singing "Death to the Arabs" – this call is an official policy that he promotes and implements.
It is impossible to continue to turn a blind eye to the radicalization of Israeli society. Calls for genocide have been completely normalized. If in the past they tried to deny the Nakba, today the Israeli right is openly calling for a second Nakba. Im Tirtzu hung a huge sign with the inscription, "Without the Nakba, there is no victory." Many of the marchers carried it on their shirts. A sane state does not call for the Nakba. A sane state does not celebrate the killing of children in Gaza – with the status of ministers and municipal funding. But Israel celebrates. Sanity seems like a distant memory."[i]
Israel, which until recently defined itself as the Zionist left, is a state that does not deserve to exist. This state must be destroyed, and a Palestinian state must be established in its place from the sea to the river. A state to which the Palestinian refugees will return, and in which Israelis who remain and do not flee will receive civil rights, but not the right to establish another Zionist state.
The right-wing centrists, such as the Socialist Struggle, who call for two socialist states, are no different from the historic Mapam scholarship that has been alive for years. They ignore the fact that Israel is a colonialist state of settlers and the fact that the Israeli working class is a workers' aristocracy that, at this stage, does not come out against the murder of the Palestinian people.
For a red democratic Palestinian state from the river to the sea!