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TEL AVIV (JTA) — Avigail Arnheim has been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu for years, beginning with the demonstrations in Jerusalem that started in 2020, calling on him to resign as Israel’s prime minister.
When Netanyahu returned to workplace in December, Arnheim once more took to the streets — this time to protest Netanyahu’s try to sap the Israeli Supreme Court docket of its energy. And now, she comes armed with what she sees as a potent image: an Israeli flag emblazoned with the phrases of the nation’s Declaration of Independence.
“I really feel that the individuals of Israel awakened, and eventually understands that life wants to come back with values, with morals and with caring,” she stated at a mass protest Tuesday night time in Tel Aviv, as Israel started celebrating its seventy fifth Independence Day. Arnheim believes these concepts are mirrored within the declaration, which was signed on the day of Israel’s founding, traces the connection of the Jewish individuals to the land of Israel, and pledges democracy and human rights.
She added, “I feel that the which means of the flag has acquired a spot in a society that wasn’t conscious of it for a very long time.”
Seeing the streets of Israel festooned with flags is among the hallmarks of the nation’s Independence Day, known as Yom Haatzmaut in Hebrew. It’s frequent for flags to line streets and hold from balconies. A well-liked kids’s tune sung on the vacation begins, “The entire land is flags.”
However this yr, Israel’s quintessential nationwide image has taken on a unique which means for some, because the lots of of 1000’s of anti-government protesters have, for months, made the flag the icon of their trigger. The flag has turn into so related to the protests that Zichron Yaakov, a metropolis north of Tel Aviv, briefly banned the flag and pictures of the Declaration of Independence from its Independence Day parade.
Voices on the precise have chafed in opposition to the concept the flag now signifies opposition to the federal government. However there was little, if any, skepticism about that concept on the streets of Tel Aviv on Tuesday night time, the place protesters enthusiastically tailored a spread of Independence Day traditions to precise their opinions.
Hundreds of Israeli protesters wave flags throughout a rally in opposition to the Israeli authorities’s judicial overhaul payments in Jerusalem, March 27, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
Some protesters seen their embrace of the flag as a corrective that now permits the flag to characterize what they see as Israel’s founding aspirations, following years throughout which it was perceived as an emblem of Israel’s proper wing. Earlier than this yr’s protests, one other outstanding political affiliation for the flag was with spiritual nationalists who maintain an annual “flag march” in Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis that has stoked Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
“It’s an emblem that had been hijacked for approach too lengthy by the precise,” stated Roy Rob, a graphic designer on the Tel Aviv rally who splits his time between Israel and Brooklyn. “It’s the identical within the States: The American flag has actually been hijacked and pigeonholed.”
Relating to the Israeli flag, he added, “Now it’s being democratized once more. It is smart that the individuals who actually care in regards to the origin of Israel, what Israel is all about, use the unique symbols of it.”
Some right-wingers aren’t able to yield Israel’s nationwide symbols. Gideon Dokov, an editor on the right-leaning newspaper Makor Rishon, known as the concept the flag represents opposition to the judicial overhaul “absurd.”
“By mistake or deliberately, it appears that evidently in latest months, there are those that try to take possession of the nationwide symbols — the flag and the Declaration of Independence — on behalf of the protests, simply as they’re making an attempt to take possession of [the concept of] democracy,” Dokov wrote earlier this month. “Each are incorrect.”
In any case, flags have been ubiquitous at Tuesday night time’s protest. When requested the place they bought theirs, a number of protesters made a perplexed face that appeared to ask, “The place have you ever been all this time?”
The flags, they stated, aren’t arduous to get. Many have been distributed without spending a dime at earlier protests, together with black T-shirts that learn, “De-mo-cra-cy” in Hebrew block letters, copying the central chant of the demonstrations. Different shirts, like Rob’s, which learn, “There’s no democracy with occupation,” have been additionally distributed by activist teams at earlier protests. Many flags included the phrase “Free in our land,” which comes from Israel’s nationwide anthem.
Others already had flags at house, and a few purchased them not too long ago. On the protest, a person who was promoting the flags and different assorted tchotchkes out of a stuffed purchasing cart stated the flag itself, with no pole, prices round $5.50. He stated he purchased his merchandise from shops and was reselling it, however wouldn’t present additional particulars.
A flag vendor stands together with his wares throughout a Yom Haatzmaut celebration and anti-government protest in Tel Aviv, April 25, 2023. (Ben Gross sales)
The flags with the Declaration of Independence textual content, Arnheim stated, went for about $13.75 and have been offered by their creator through group chats used to prepare the protests. Nati Hochberg, who traveled from a city north of Tel Aviv to reveal, stated he purchased his flag (with pole) for some $11 at a ironmongery store, after somebody stole a earlier flag of his from his motorbike.
“We’ve taken again what belongs to us,” Hochberg stated of the flag. His pal Tal Vardi, who traveled with him and has had his flag for years, added, “This inhabitants for a few years ceded these symbols and now it’s taking them again. … I don’t know if it occurred coincidentally, however it’s a sense that it additionally belongs to us.”
That the flag has became a protest image, stated one lady from northern Israel who declined to present her identify, elicits a mix of “delight and disappointment” relating to the political battle raging within the nation.
“It’s clearly preferable for this to not be,” she stated whereas holding a flag similar to Arnheim’s. “However whether it is like this, a minimum of the flag ought to have which means.”
The protesters didn’t shrink back from adapting different Independence Day pastimes, both. A white, foamy spray historically blasted by kids on the vacation was being rebranded on the protest as “democracy snow” (one large can for about $2.75).
At a much less crowded space of the protest, somebody used the spray to spell out “democracy” in massive letters on the bottom. On a close-by bicycle path, the phrase “Go away,” used as a chant in opposition to Netanyahu, was additionally written within the spray. A bicycle owner stopped quick earlier than working it over.
A Tel Aviv protest at the beginning of Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, featured a sea of flags, April 25, 2023. (Ben Gross sales)
Smooth plastic hammers, one other vacation mainstay, have been additionally seen all through the group. And a DJ blasted basic Israeli dance music in the midst of the demonstration, together with the American Jewish summer time camp favourite “Zodiac,” sung by Yaron Hadad.
Basically, indicators of the protests freckle Tel Aviv, which has been the nerve heart of the demonstrations and the bastion of Israel’s left-wing minority. Municipal bus stops bear indicators enjoying on the phrases of the nationwide anthem and implying that the protests will maintain Israel “Free from racism,” “Free from repression of girls” and extra. Graffiti supporting the protests — reminiscent of “Bibi is a traitor” — additionally isn’t arduous to seek out, although there’s additionally a smattering of pro-overhaul graffiti reminiscent of one message calling Israel’s Supreme Court docket a dictatorship.
Some paraphernalia on the demonstration trumpeted particular causes, like an LGBTQ delight flag, a flag that spelled out “democracy” within the colours of the Israeli and Palestinian flags, or a T-shirt, given out by an self-styled “average majority” activist group, that learn “I [heart] Bagatz,” the Hebrew acronym for the Supreme Court docket.
Some members bought extra inventive. At a desk in a sparse space, just a few individuals provided free alcohol to passersby whereas a younger man utilizing a megaphone sang “Democracy and arak” to the tune of the well-known riff from the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Military.”
The concept, his colleague Ron stated, was to present individuals free drinks to have fun the nation and the protests — which they hope will protect the likelihood for younger individuals to get an training and discover dignified work.
“Basically, that is our final shot to save lots of democracy, so everybody who needs to save lots of democracy will get a shot as a present from us,” stated Ron, 23, who declined to present his final identify. ”We love everybody, and we love democracy.”
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