Israel Matzav

Those who would destroy us from within II

How could I talk about those who would destroy us from within without mentioning Israel's Hebrew Palestinian Daily. This time, the article is even available in English on their own website. In fact, it's one of their regular columnists:

I clearly remember when I stopped hanging the flag. It was after I saw the settlers dashing through Palestinian villages, fearsome flags waving from their cars to confront and provoke the residents of the land they had invaded. I said to myself that a flag intended for provocation and confrontation is not my flag. I later saw the flag as a land marker, establishing ownership that is not ours. In every settlement and outpost they hung the flag that was my flag as well to "establish facts on the ground."

How can I hang at my home the same flag that flies over the homes of the Jewish settlement in the heart of Hebron, which has expelled nearly 20,000 residents from their homes? How can I hang the flag that flies on the homes of Yitzhar and Itamar, and at dozens of checkpoints designed to choke the lives of our neighbors? How can I hang the flag that flies on the jeeps that burst forth in the dead of night and spread terror in the hearts of little children? The flag became increasingly distant from me; the national flag became the flag of extreme nationalism.

Perhaps the question that ought to be asked is how one can hang the flag of the government that expelled Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip, that tolerates rocket attacks on the western Negev daily (including today) and that abandoned one third of its population to Hezbullah rockets last summer.

But the author of the article above, Gideon Levy, ought to leave the country if he is so embarrassed. Maybe we should take up a collection to let him move to Lebanon.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:47 AM