Next Year In Jerusalem
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget
[her cunning]. 6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion. [2] On the willows there we hung up our harps. [3] For there our captors asked us for words of song, and our tormentors, for mirth: "Sing to us from the songs of Zion!" [4] How could we sing the song of the LORD on an alien land? [5] If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill, [6] May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
"Despite the threats, and I will tell you, because of the threats, I instructed to hold the flag march with the participation of thousands on its [traditional] route, as usual and according to procedure.""We dealt heavy blows to our aggressors in the Gaza Strip, and I believe that the message was received not only by them, [but] also in other places in our region, who witnessed the impressive operational capabilities of the State of Israel.""If another reminder is required to renew the deterrence - it will also come. We changed the equation."Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israelis sing and dance with flags by Damascus gate to Jerusalem's Old city as they mark Jerusalem Day. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters |
How
is it that the world looks on and sneers at the Jewish Israeli
celebrations of Flag Day, a national holiday a national memorial to the
resumption of Jewish life in Judea/Israel and its ancient City of David,
Jerusalem? Other countries are permitted to celebrate their national
days without attracting the kind of criticism that Israel does. Reports
of 'ultra-nationalists' waving Israeli flags portray them as being
infected with a type of dangerous nationalist sentiment posing as a
threat to others.
In
fact, threats came their way through the usual Islamist-terrorist
channels messaged by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, warning that
should the festival mood of celebrating the reborn nation and its flag
be pursued, violence would result once again, yet again, forever again,
against Israel and its people. Conversely, the world's legacy news media
fail to see anything remarkable in those threats; as long as it happens
in Israel, to Jews, that violence can be tolerated. After all, they
shrug, Israel is an occupying power.
Israeli police stand guard as visitors tour Al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount, amid tensions ahead of the annual flag march which marks Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem May 18, 2023. REUTERS/Sinan Abu Mayzer |
An
'occupying power' in its very own ancestral land, where Jews from
antiquity to the present lived their lives, yearning for the day to
arrive when their extended family in a diaspora would finally return to
claim their Biblical-era patrimony, the geography where Judaism was born
and set the world alight with the messages of godliness and tolerance
and respect and the Ten Commandments that set out in pithy form what
civilization required of humanity.
Jews
have dreamt for millennia of a return to their Holy Land, wrested from
its indigenous Jews by conquest-seeking, territorial occupiers. Nowhere
on Earth were Jews able to find peace and security living in nations of
the world that invariably found fault with this tiny
ethnic-social-cultural-religious group of survivors. Until the time when
their very survival was placed in dire jeopardy and half the world's
population of Jews was annihilated.
Israelis wave national flags during a march marking Jerusalem Day, just outside Jerusalem's Old City. Maya Alleruzzo/AP |
Now,
at a time when Jews have been reunited with their history, their
heritage, their memory-sacred places of their very existence, constant
threats of genocidal intention continue. Jews live in hope never-ending,
their critics for whom antisemitism represents a visceral reaction to
the very idea of Judaism, much less a return to Zion so passionately
held by a people taught through adversity that it has no friends and
supporters and must be self-reliant, understand that they are their own
friendly support.
So
once a year they celebrate themselves, their heritage, their culture,
religion, and very existence, symbolized by an identifying flag, flown
high and proud in their ancient capital, Jerusalem. The world doesn't
have to approve, or to like it as it continues to denigrate the passion
of Jews for their homeland. But it really should stop commenting on the
Temple Mount as representing a place sacred to Palestinian Arabs who
feel they have a right to claim Jerusalem as their own.
Palestinians take part in a protest against the holding of the annual flag march in Jerusalem which marks Jerusalem Day, at the Israel-Gaza border fence east of Gaza City May 18, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem |
And
writing of Israeli Jews 'touring' the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the
Old City, Islamic places of reverence that supplanted the ancient
Temples of Solomon, the most sacred of symbols for Jews. In a Jewish
country, where Arabs are permitted to live in peace among Jews, along
with other ethnic and religious groups in a generous democracy,
forgiving of the hostility directed at Jews and Judaism, non-Jews may
not, cannot, should not, will not dictate to Jews whether they may or
may not celebrate the unity of Jerusalem as Judean.
The
rage and anger of Muslims over Jewish feet on the Temple Mount, where
Islam denies Jews the right to pray on their own sacred soil in their
own country is intolerable, a reflection of the rank intolerance of
Israel's neighbours and some of its own citizens.
Israelis sing and dance with flags by Damascus gate to Jerusalem's Old city as they mark Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem May 18, 2023. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun |
Labels: Flag Day, International Hypocrisy, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian Arab Hostility, Threats
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