Jerusalem Day and a parade Israel’s Leftists hate

During Israel’s 1948 War of independence, Jews could not keep Jerusalem in Jewish hands. Parts of the Holy City fell to Arab control.

After that war, Jews were cleansed from their homes. You can see in the essay I posted (above) by Miriam Elman how the conquering Arabs treated Jews and Jewish Holy places after the 1948 war (“Five Reasons to Celebrate Jerusalem Day”, Legal Insurrection, May 15, 2015). 

For the first 19 years of Israel’s existence, all of eastern Jerusalem was virtually Judenrein (Jew-free) and completely off-limits to Jews. Then, in 1967, another Arab-Israel war broke out. In that fighting, Jerusalem was recaptured by the Jews.

Ms Elman describes what that meant (above). Jerusalem was reunited. Jerusalem was once again Jewish.

Today, Israel celebrates that not-so-far-away June day of liberation. That day of joy is called, Yom Yirushalaim—Jerusalem Day. It’s a day of song and celebration.

The highlight of the day is a ‘parade of flags’. I estimate that this special parade draws between 50,000-100,000+ participants. It’s enormous. It’s bigger than enormous (see below). I would further (unscientifically) estimate that the majority of parade participants are under 17 years of age.

Some anti-Jewish Jews object to this parade. They seem to hate Jews who celebrate Jerusalem. Apparently, they prefer that Jerusalem belong to Arab Muslims, not Jews.

Last year, a member (a “Fellow”) of the anti-Israel New Israel Fund went into the parade crowd. Ignoring all celebratory chants/songs, she focussed only on chants which she said were ‘racist’ (Leanne Gale, “‘Go to Hell, Leftist’ and Other Jerusalem Day Slogans”, The Forward, May 29, 2014). But she didn’t address some basic questions: what percentage of the crowd shouted those offensive slogans? What percentage didn’t?

My bet is, only a small percent of marchers shouted such slogans. Perhaps that's why the essayist didn’t raise these questions.  

She also failed to discuss—although her essay implicitly suggested—that some of the slogans she so disliked seemed to have been prompted by her own presence among the celebrants. Did she do something to provoke that? She didn’t say.

Instead, she simply ‘concluded’, “the March of Flags…reveals the violence of Jewish power in the holy city” (ibid).

That’s nonsense. What her experience reveals is the joy of reunification--and youthful hostility to anti-Israel Leftists who push into their celebration.  

The parade is a magnet for Leftists. They see this parade as proof that Jews are violent. Leftists come, ignore Arab riots at different parade-points and then possibly provoke marchers so they can tell the world, ‘see, Jews are violent and racist!’ (Gale, above, and, “Violent clashes erupt during Jerusalem Day parade”, LiveLeak, June 1, 2011).

This year, Leftist attacks began even before the parade began (Miriam Ellman, “The Battle Over Jerusalem Day March”, Legal Insurrection, May 15, 2015).  One Jewish anti-Jew said, in part, “The triumphalist and inevitably racist character of  [the Jerusalem Day parade] is beneath the dignity of…Zionism’s noble goal” (ibid). He sounded noble. But he wanted the parade cancelled.

That’s the goal of Israel’s anti-Israel Left. It wants to stamp out all things ‘Jewish’. For these ‘human rights’ activists, if something’s ‘Jewish’, it’s ‘racist’. The Jerusalem Day parade is no exception.  

For the Leftist, the parade is offensive: it’s difficult to deny Jerusalem’s Jewish essence in the face of such celebration. Leftists therefore attack using their ‘Human Rights’ knock-out punch: the parade is ‘racist’ (Elhanan Miller, “Before Jerusalem Day march, opponents aim to thwart racism”, Times of Israel, April 28, 2015).

If these humanitarians were really interested in racism, they’d forget about a Jewish parade made up primarily of teens, some of whom have more exuberance than brains. Instead, they’d focus on influential Arab adult religious leaders in the Palestinian Authority who call Jews ‘apes and pigs (“PA cleric: Jews are ‘apes and pigs and slaves of deities’”, Palestine Media Watch, Official Palestinian Authority TV, Jan. 30, 2015). That’s the racism they should be fighting.

Jerusalem, forget your Leftist enemies. Today is for you. Celebrate your freedom. Dance in the street.

Here are two pictures for you. One is from a previous Jerusalem Day parade, courtesy Wikipedia. It gives you a sense of the enormity of the crowds. It’s a picture of the intersection of Ben Yehuda and Jaffa ‘streets’.

The second picture is a look at how a Jerusalemite sees himself as he drives in Jerusalem traffic. This second picture is courtesy of the turbomagazine.co.il website. It appears to have been taken down the hill from the King David Hotel:

 

 

How many thousands are in this picture?

Next is that picture of what a Jerusalemite thinks about himself as he drives in Jerusalem:

This picture was taken during a past ‘Jerusalem Grand Prix race day’.

It was a fun day. You should’ve been there.

PS: there’s a new headline in Israel. It shows how out-of-touch the Israeli Left really is. The headline says it all: (Tova Dvorin, “Poll: 92% of Israeli Jews Say Jerusalem is Eternal [Jewish] Capital”, Arutz Sheva, May 17, 2015).

Happy Jerusalem Day.