Original articles on Israel and related issues written by Steven Plaut, a professor at an Israeli university.
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It was only 3 weeks later when the problems began.
The swine, began the shouts, there is nothing at all in these documents about any kidnappings, not even a single one. Only about infants who died or "disappeared" while in monstrously overcrowded hospital wards. We was robbed!!
But that just proves how nefarious the conspiracy is!, it was said. Evidently, the 95-year old MAPAI Ashkenazi conspirators had somehow gotten into the archives under a Likud government, and made away with the only papers documenting actual kidnappings! Government officials insisted they had released all the documents they had held. BUT BUT BUT there just had to be more!!
The campaign escalated. Columnist after columnist, TV talking heads, Mizrachi activists from Right and Left, the Communist Party.
We demand a new commission of inquiry into the disappearance of the real kidnapping documents. That last one, er, four commissions should not count.
Ah, sighed the PM, who knows, perhaps some day the truth might emerge. Next year in Jerusalem!
2.
For decades the Yemenite children kidnap conspiracy was but one out of a pair of supposed conspiracies carried out in Israel against Mizrachi children. The second was the "ringworm children" conspiracy and it too is now coming back out of the sewers of conspiracism.
Ringworm is a nasty fungal infection, one that even in the 90s when my kids had it was tough to get rid of. According to the anti-Israel conspiracy nuts, Israel decided to perform human experiments on the children affected in the 1950s by ringworm with irradiation. In retrospect, it was a harmful treatment and exposed the kids to health risks. A bit like thalidomide in the US. There was no conspiracy. There was de facto medical error.
Nevertheless, over time the "ringworm" conspiracy became the twin mate of the Yemenite children conspiracy, mentioned by the same people, especially anti-Israel Sephardic communists and plain old anti-Semites like Barry Chamish and Little Dickie Silverstein. And neo-nazi web sites.
The anti-Semites paint it as Nazi-like experimentation on children. No one knows how many, if any, Israeli kids died from it. Neo-nazi Silverstein says tens of thousands of Arabs (!!!) died. He also claims Jews commit "goyacide." He has been unemployed for 20 years.
In fairness, the dangers of irradiation were not known at the time, the 50s. I know. In my Philly neighborhood strip mall down the street were shoe stores with XRAYs for free to see how your feet fit inside the shoes. I shudder to think how many times I did it. I did not get sick from it.
This week countless conspiracy nuts are trying to dredge up the ringworm children as companion conspiracy for the non-existent Yemenite children conspiracy "theory."
What is that telling you? And yes they too want a commission of inquiry.
3. HEY I CAN'T FIND MY CAR KEYS.
THAT PROVES THEY WERE KIDNAPPED BY AN EVIL ASHKENAZI MEGA-CONSPIRACY!!
4. If you bring me an actual report from 1950 about an alleged Kidnapping of a Yemenite kid at that time, I may be willing to look at it.
If you bring me a new report made 65 years later, do not bother.
If you are a believer in the yemen children conspiracy theory, explain to us whether and why you also believe chamish about rabin/peres.
Why do so many people believe the ridiculous conspiracy paranoia from the 9-11 "troofer" people? These are people obsessed with a conspiracy that never existed. Sound familiar?
Here is an example of a total absence of evidence of any sort:
I know lots of people who all claim they have heard from lots of other people that they heard that Yemenite children disappeared without explanation and that must mean they were abducted and the CIA knocked down the WTC at Shimon Peres' behest.
QED
Israel's Kidnapped Yemenite Children Bogeyman
By Steven Plaut
Every few years Israel is convulsed in "kidnapped Yemenite children" hysteria, and this summer is just the latest round. The ruckus concerns allegations that Yemenite children in the 1950s were kidnapped from their parents by racist Ashkenazim, five years after the Holocaust, "sold" in a giant conspiracy and put up for illegal adoption.
This year, as usual, demagogue politicians are joining the calls for yet another state commission of inquiry into the matter, trying to make political hay. There have been several commissions already. Journalists from the Far Left, the Far Right, and the Far-out Center are trying to build careers out of it all.
Large numbers of the Israeli public, not limited to Yemenites, believe the conspiracy tales. Not as many as Americans who believe in UFOs or a JFK conspiracy, but nevertheless alarming.
There is just one little problem with the "theory." It is nonsense.
READ MY LIPS! THERE WERE NEVER ANY KIDNAPPED YEMENITE CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. THERE WERE NO ILLEGAL ADOPTIONS OF YEMENITE CHILDREN. THERE WAS NO CONSPIRACY.
Before arriving in Israel, infant/child mortality in Yemen was probably the worst in the world. Well over 60% of infants died. Much like in the days of the Talmud. In halakha an infant death or NAFAL is not death at all and there is no shiva.
The deaths did not suddenly halt when the Yemenite Jews got off the planes in Israel. Israel at the time was a Third World mess. Much of the population was in MAABARA transit camps. The roads were mud. Almost no Israelis had phones and many had no bathroom or kitchen.
Hospital record keeping was poor and hospital care not much better. The country's attention was elsewhere, in things like finding food. People who did not know Hebrew could not communicate with one another. And the mess was not just in the hospitals. Large numbers of soldiers had died in the War of Independence, without their identities ever being recorded and known. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics was not founded until 1949 and in the 1980s was still located in asbestos shacks without computers
Under these circumstances, infants died, corpses were misplaced, parents were not kept fully informed, parents imagined being persecuted. To put things into proportion, in 21st century USA with all the computers, corpses disappear from hospitals all the time.
Why did the hospital not simply call the Yemenite parents when an infant died? Because the hospital had no phone, the parents had no phone, lived in a tent, did not speak Hebrew, and the mail did not work - it still does not.
Since the 1950s, EVERY STATE COMMISSION - there have been at least three - HAS RULED THERE is no hard evidence of any KIDNAPPINGS.
NONE WILL EVER SETTLE THE MATTER FOR THE CONSPIRACY NUTS BECAUSE THEY WILL ALWAYS DEMAND YET ANOTHER INVESTIGATION.
THE PEOPLE DEMANDING NEW INVESTIGATIONS NOW ARE EXACTLY LIKE THE 911-TROOFERS AND THE PEOPLE SEEKING EVIDENCE OF A JEWISH CABAL TO CONTROL THE WORLD.
The fact that "a lot of people" think something is true does not make it true. 65 years of "searching" have already gone by. Multiple state commissions of inquiry. Highest of high tech available. And not a single proven case of a "kidnapped" Yemenite child ever found - OR EVEN OF AN ILLICIT ADOPTION. Where are all the Yemenite-looking Ashkenazim in Scarsdale and how come none ever asked about being adopted? None. Conclusion?
Supposedly "hundreds" of "kidnapped" Yemenite children were "sold." Yet 65 years later and not a single one of the sold ever went searching for his or her biological family.
Conclusion?
Now just suppose that the main advocate of a theory, any theory, were a certifiably deranged stockpiler of assault weapons planning mass murder and attacks on the Israeli police. What would be your conclusion about his theory?
Well, meet the leading advocate of the "theory" of the kidnapped Yemenite children: the late Uzi Meshulam. A certified lunatic and terrorist. He led the drive to (re-) investigate once again the "disappearances."
His fans - conspiracy nuts still beating the dead old horse about "kidnapped" Yemenite children - are not nutty enough for you?
Well let us introduce you to Ami Meshulam, son of Uzi Meshulam. He is all over the media in Israel this week as the "conspiracy" fiction gets retold ad nauseum. Meshulam the Younger goes way beyond what his whack job pappy said. According to Ami, "thousands" of Yemenite children were rounded up in Israel in the 1950s by an Ashkenazi Gestapo and sold en masse to the USA WHERE THEY WERE SUBJECTED TO MENGELE-LIKE EXPERIMENTATION. Really. Which I am sure will be interesting for anyone who grew up in American during the Eisenhower era.
Ultra-leftist Haaretz, which generally likes the conspiracists, runs a TV review this week saying Ami Meshulam's theory might as well be that UFOs kidnapped the Yemenite kids. Conspiracy nut UFOLOGIST Barry Chamish - who publishes his "scoops" on Holocaust Denial web sites - has long been a devoted Meshulamite and has ties to Ami.
In a country where politician peccadillos become known instantly, where the "stinky deal" with Shimon Peres was exposed immediately, where the "esek bish" affair was leaked right away, where military secrets might as well appear on Facebook, explain to me how the thousands of people who would have to have been involved in the "kidnappings" of hundreds of children all kept silent 65 years and not a single one ever spoke out??!!
1. READ MY LIPS
THERE WERE NEVER ANY KIDNAPPED YEMENITE CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. THERE WERE NO ILLEGAL ADOPTIONS OF YEMENITE CHILDREN. THERE WAS NO CONSPIRACY.
THERE WERE A HANDFUL OF LEGAL ADOPTIONS. THERE WERE ALSO MANY CASES OF CHILD MORTALITY; THE YEMENITES ARRIVED IN ISRAEL FROM YEMEN WITH A VERY HIGH INCIDENCE. HOSPITAL RECORD KEEPING IN ISRAEL IN THE 1950S WAS A MESS.
EVERY STATE COMMISSION HAS RULED THERE WERE NO KIDNAPPINGS. NONE WILL EVER SETTLE THE MATTER FOR THE CONSPIRACY NUTS BECAUSE THEY WILL ALWAYS DEMAND YET ANOTHER.
THE PEOPLE DEMANDING NEW INVESTIGATIONS ARE EXACTLY LIKE THE 911-TROOFERS AND THE UFO-HUNTING CHAMISH NUTS.
THEIR ENTIRE CASE CAN BE DEBUNKED BY TELLING THEM: "BULLSHIT."
GET A LIFE - they WERE NOT KIDNAPPED:
65 years of "searching" go by. Multiple state commissions of inquiry. Highest of high tech available. Not a single case of a "kidnapped" Yemenite child found. Conclusion?
The fact that "a lot of people" think something is true does not make it true.
Supposedly "hundreds" of "kidnapped" Yemenite children. Yet 65 years later and not a single one ever went searching for his or her biological family.
Conclusion?
The whole "theory" is recycled Bullshit.
The 'Arab Jew' Invention of Bar-Ilan University's Menachem Klein
By: Steven Plaut
Published: June 20th, 2016
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Bar-Ilan University Professor Menachem Klein
When one contemplates the radical anti-Israel Left in Israeli academia, Bar-Ilan University (BIU) is not ordinarily the school that jumps to mind. Bar-Ilan is nominally an Orthodox religious school, although lots of secularists and non-Jews study and teach there. Bar-Ilan has fewer tenured anti-Israel leftists than do other institutions, but nevertheless it does have a few. Probably the worst is Menachem Klein from the BIU political science department.
Klein is one of the leading Bash-Israel academics who has a special passion for the idea of dividing Jerusalem and removing Israel from its sacred shrines. The 64 year old was the academic fig leaf for the anti-Israel "Geneva Initiative" of Yossi Beilin and the Far Left. When he was denied an academic promotion a while back, he publicly denounced Bar Ilan University as a thuggish institution.
A member of the board of B'tselem, Klein seems to have never met an anti-Semite he does not like. He favors Israeli leftists negotiating peace with Palestinians, by surrendering to their demands.
In recent years Klein has devoted his energies to resuscitating the old Stalinist myth about Arab-Jewish euphoria before the rise of Zionism and especially the silly pseudo-history around the notion of the "Arab Jew." Invented by a small group of Israeli Stalinists led by Tel Aviv University sociologist Yehouda Shenhav, these people claim that Oriental Jews are actually Arabs of the Mosaic persuasion. Never mind the proportion who would slap you silly if they hear you calling them Arabs of any sort. Shenhav has promoted his view that Asian Jews are Arabs in numerous articles and his book, The Arab Jews: Nationality, Religion and Ethnicity, won rave reviews from Arab extremists and from PLO front groups.
Shenhav considers Zionism to be a form of colonialism. Indeed, Shenhav has long argued that Asian Jews and Arabs need to unite to fight Zionism, that old "common cause" of the communist party in Iraq and "Palestine" from the 1920s onward. Asian Jews and Arabs are, in his view, two wings of the same struggle in absolutely everything – except that Shehav has staunchly opposed the idea of compensation for Asian Jews from Arab countries for their property stolen.
Now years later, Klein tries to steal the anti-Zionist thunder from the Stalinists, but by beating the same old tune. The only difference is that Klein rewrites Jewish-Arab relations based upon the supposed euphoria in "Palestine" before Israel's creation – not in Iraq – when the local Jews were supposedly Jewish Arabs. This tooth fairy historic revisionism is the focus of his book, 'Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron.' It is in effect science fiction focused upon the past.
Countless murders of Jews and pogroms against them notwithstanding, Klein's proof is that in Hebron in 1929, almost half the Jews there were not massacred by the local Arabs. Klein then argues that not only were pre-Independence relations among Jews and Arabs in "Palestine" idyllic, but that the Jews considered themselves Arabs
in all things. Something even Shenhav never claims. The problems only began when "nationalism" made its appearance on the scene, and you will not be disappointed to learn that he does NOT mean Arab nationalism, something presumably Jewish Arabs could embrace and join.
From the toady Haaretz review of his book:
Arab-Jewish identity, writes Klein, did not only develop in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron. "It was a fact of life throughout the Arab world. By the end of the 19th century it was a self-conscious identity in the major cities of the east, such as Cairo, Beirut and Baghdad. In these urban centers Jews took part in the Arab cultural renaissance and local national movements." …
Yet even then, in the midst of the looming nationalist conflict, the lines remained fluid. Jewish women worked in Jaffa's cafes and restaurants as waitresses, singers and dancers. Jaffa's young men flocked to Tel Aviv's cafes and beaches, wide-eyed at the sight of scantily dressed women, unimaginable in Jaffa itself, and the Hebrew city's atmosphere of sexual licentiousness. Older Arab men courted middle-aged Jewish women at the Casino Café, on the beach, which offered live music, weekly formal dance nights and a crèche.
Like a Graham Greene novel.
The fatal death blow to the bucolic paradise came in 1948, when those accursed Zionists declared Israeli independence. Clearly Klein, who wants Jerusalem to belong to the "Palestinians," thinks the solution is for the Jews to go back to being obedient and easily-massacred Jewish Arabs.
LEFTIST BGU FACULTY MEMBER MURDERED BY PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS
One of the victims of the barbaric terror attack in Tel Aviv was a leftist faculty member from the monochromatic department of sociology at Ben Gurion University. The victim is Michael Feige, whose web page can be seen here
http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/bgi/Pages/michael_Feige.aspx
The syllabus of his biased one-sided course on "settlers" appears here http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/ISIP/Site%20Assets/Pages/Syllabus-Israel-in-the-Jewish-World/West%20Bank%20Settlers.pdf Feige liked to write against "fundamentalism," by which he meant those who disagree with the Left or who practice Judaism. Not Islamists.
Here is Feige romanticizing the radical anti-Israel "Peace Now" political organization: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/179149
Here is Feige as co-author of far-leftist convicted rapist professor Eyal Ben Ari: http://www.academia.edu/3472733/Card_Games_and_an_Israeli_Army_Unit_An_Interpretive_Case_Study,
in a study of card playing among soldiers. (Strange things count as research among sociologists.)
Here he is in Hebrew celebrating the use of force against "settlers": http://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1499988
Terror news story where he is ID'ed: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4813768,00.html
It is not known whether Feige managed to renounce his leftist delusions before he himself became one of the victims of them.
Petard hoist?
2.
Interesting comment in all this - Israelis going out in evening to bars wearing suits is so uncharacteristic that the foreign journalists all conclude that the Arab terrorists wore suits to appear as ultra-Orthodox Chareidim. Even though the place was treif.99 canisters here,
If on Yata the last one should fall,
98 napalm bombs on the wall.
98 napalm bombs on the wall,
98 canisters here,
If on Yata the last one should fall,
97 napalm bombs on the wall.
97 napalm bombs on the wall,
97 canisters here,
If on Yata the last one should fall,
96 napalm bombs on the wall.....
1. Send Israel's tenured leftists to Rikers Island!!
The Knesset is issuing a "boycott the boycotters" call, directed against the BDS terrorists who boycott Israel.
Now NY STATE ANNOUNCES IT IS BOYCOTTING ALL BDS ACTIVISTS.
ISRACAMPUS HAS ISSUED THE FOLLOWING CALL:
DEMAND THAT NY STATE BOYCOTT ANTI-ISRAEL ISRAELI LEFTIST "ACADEMICS" WHO ENDORSE BDS TERRORISM AGAINST ISRAEL!!!
PUT EM IN RIKERS!!
2. http://www.meforum.org/6046/israel-socialist-dreams-capitalist-realities
Israel's Socialist Dreams vs. Capitalist Realities
by Steven Plaut
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2016
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| Israel truly is the startup nation. There are more startups in Israel than in Western Europe, and the number of Israeli patents is among the largest for any country in the world. Shares of numerous Israeli companies trade on the NASDAQ stock exchange while acquisitions of Israeli high-tech companies by foreign investors inject many billions of dollars into the country every year. |
A colorful legend holds that when God offered the Torah to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, they were reluctant to accept it. God then lifted the mountain over their heads in a threatening manner, mak-ing them an offer they could not refuse. They reconsidered.
The saga of economic liberalism, some-times dubbed "neoliberal-ism," and Israeli economic growth bears some similarities to that legend. Modern Israel has developed into something of an economic miracle, largely as a result of economic liberalization, driven by entrepreneurship, innovation, investment, and the accumulation of human capital. Yet Israelis have never been entirely comfortable with economic liberalism and indeed are by and large hostile to it.[1] Like their wandering ancestors, they have benefitted in spite of their disinclinations.
The Reluctant "Start-Up Nation"
Israelis may be the most entrepreneurial population on the planet;[2] their capabilities in innovation being, for example, the essential message of Start-Up Nation,[3] the New York Times business bestseller. There are supposed to be more startups in Israel than in Western Europe, not per capita, but in absolute numbers.[4] With a population of eight million people, Israel has over 6,000 startups. In the 2015 Bloomberg Innovation Index, Israel was ranked ahead of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.[5] The number of Israeli patents is among the largest for any country in the world[6] while shares of numerous Israeli companies trade on the American NASDAQ stock exchange as well as other exchanges. Acquisitions of Israeli high-tech companies by foreign investors inject many billions of dollars into the country every year. Among the reasons for the country's success are its well-educated labor force, a high household savings rate, high levels of imported capital, a strong immigration rate (which includes many highly-educated people), and especially—in recent years—an extremely creative high-tech sector, which so far operates largely outside the realm of government regulation.
This economic good news is all the more remarkable in light of the fact that Israel began its existence in the late 1940s as an impoverished third-world country, whose economy might have been discussed in the same breath as that of India or Egypt. Today, Israel has a gross domestic product per capita comparable to that of the middle-income countries of Western Europe, roughly the same as Italy's. Israel was one of the only countries in the world whose economy did not contract during the global financial crisis that began in 2007. Its rates of inflation and unemployment have been better than those of the United States and Western Europe in recent years. The economy has shown its resilience in the face of numerous challenges and shocks, including chronic terrorism, frequent military conflict, a huge defense burden, a dearth of physical natural resources, and the need to integrate people arriving from scores of different countries and cultures.
Ironically, this dramatic transition from low-development status to today's very high level took place largely despite economic policies that were, in many cases, designed to prevent growth and efficiency. Economic policy has been liberalized slowly over time, but this occurred by and large in the face of governmental reluctance.[7] In some cases, especially regarding the reduction of import protectionism, this was forced upon the government as part of multinational trade agreements.[8]
Israeli economic policy has almost always stifled competition; protected inefficient sectors; allocated resources based on political negotiation, lobbying, and political power; and suppressed market forces in large swaths of the economy. This "reign of pork"[9]— has included the maintenance of an enormous bloated public sector, a long series of bailouts for failed enterprises, high tax rates, and a gargantuan budget.
To continue reading the article, open http://www.meforum.org/6046/israel-socialist-dreams-capitalist-realities
3. The new magic mantra of the asslibs (assimilationist liberals) is that Judaism must be "Inclusive."
"Inclusive" of what? First of all, the "transgendered," then every imaginable sexual perversion, then BDS anti-Semitism, in fact - inclusive of everything except Trump supporters.
And they oppose being "exclusive," in the sense of excluding pagan abominations, anti-Semitism, and being untrendy. They are fine though with excluding Judaism.
Moses in the Ladies Room?
Israel is under mortal threat. Global anti-Semitism is growing. Iran getting nuclear weapons. ISIS atrocities everywhere.
And what is foremost on the agenda of the "Conservative" synagogue movement? Making sure that if Bruce Jenner ever decides to convert to Judaism, he will feel comfortable in a "Conservative synagogue."
Some mentally ill people want to alter their gender. Greedy surgeons perform mutilations for profit. Insane parents tell their 8 year old kids they can "choose" their gender. Cowardly psychologists and psychiatrists provide window dressing for the "reassignment" atrocities, pretending there is really a trans gender.
And the "Conservative" "synagogue" movement joins the pagan political correctness orgy. The Reform movement long ago replaced Judaism with political liberalism as its "theology." The Reconstructionists were never anything more than Marxist liberation theologists mixed with cheerleading for Islamist terror and anti-Semitism. The "Conservatives" though had pretensions of practicing Judaism, sort of.
Never mind what the Torah says about cross-dressing. The "Conservatives" want Elijah to come back as a tranny and use the ladies room in their "shul." Thou shalt be trendy - replaces the Ten Commandments for them. It is the moral death of their movement.
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Conservative-rabbis-adopt-resolution-backing-transgender-rights-455811
Conservative rabbis adopt resolution backing transgender rights
The resolution passed last week expresses "the full welcome, acceptance, and inclusion of people of all gender identities in Jewish life and general society."
The international association of Conservative rabbis passed a resolution declaring its embrace of transgender people, and called on Jewish institutions and government agencies to ensure their full equality.
The Rabbinical Assembly resolution passed last week expresses "the full welcome, acceptance, and inclusion of people of all gender identities in Jewish life and general society."
In its Resolution Affirming the Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People, the group makes a legal case for its position, arguing the spectrum of Jewish text "affirms the variety of non-binary gender expression throughout history."
"Since Talmudic times, our people have recognized that the human condition is not just binary," said Rabbi Gil Steinlauf, the gay spiritual leader at Adas Israel in Washington, D.C., in an interview with the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group. "I hope this resolution will go far in promoting this deep truth of our religion in our society and in the world."
The resolution encourages Conservative synagogues, camps, schools, communal and professional organizations "to create fully inclusive settings." It follows a similar resolution passed by the Union for Reform Judaism in November.
The Rabbinical Assembly, which comprises 1,700 rabbis, encouraged institutions affiliated with the Conservative movement to assess policies, physical facilities and language to become "safe spaces" for transgender and gender non-conforming people. It also encouraged employees of the institutions to educate themselves and their constituencies about the needs of transgender and gender non-conforming people, including, for example, using an individual's preferred pronoun.
"That is always the first job of the religious community, the faith community: to bring our Jewish values to bear on our real-life situations and the real people around us," Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the executive vice president of the assembly, told the Washington Post.
Over the weekend, transgender Jews and Jewish LGBT organizations celebrated the resolution. Schonfeld said she has not heard of any resistance to it.
"I don't believe there was opposition to it at all," she said. "I think it really comes out of a basic set of values, to see the infinite and equal worth in every human being. I think it speaks very directly to Jewish values. This is one of the examples of how the Torah's fundamental values keep reasserting themselves as society grows and matures."
The resolution comes in the wake of a tense national conversation on transgender rights. In March, the North Carolina legislature passed a law banning transgender people from using bathrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificate. A backlash from businesses followed, and President Barack Obama responded in May with a directive instructing public schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom of their choice, igniting a nationwide debate.
The Israeli Left's War against the Flag
By Steven Plaut
The Israeli Left has a serious flag problem. Well, a problem with the Israeli flag to be precise. The one with the six-pointed blue star. Not the ISIS flag.
The Left intensely dislikes people who wave Israeli flags, although I think it would be okay with those radical anti-Trump protesters waving Mexican and Iranian flags. At the Israeli Left's own rallies, like one widely reported recently, one sees oodles of Stalinist red flags, lots of PLO flags, and sometimes one may see Hamas flags, but no Israeli flags.
In a few famous cases, the Left's contempt for the flag goes well beyond that. A few months ago, the ultra-leftist Israeli "artist" and "activist" Ariel Bronz appeared at an assembly sponsored by the anti-Israel Haaretz newspaper and pranced about the stage with an Israeli flag inserted in his rear end. Haaretz approved and hailed the behavior as the epitome of democracy and patriotism. In an earlier incident one Natali Cohen Vaxberg, also a leftist activist and actress, posted on the web videos of her relieving herself (number two, to be precise) on the Israeli flag. More courageous defense of freedom of speech, squealed Haaretz and its leftist amen choir in delight.
The latest twist in the Left's jihad against the flag has to do with plans by participants in the upcoming Jerusalem Reunification Day festivities to wave it. This has triggered horrific anger among the enlightened Left. They are particularly irate because celebrants plan to march all over Jerusalem waving flags, including in all parts of the Old City.
That is simply fascism, scream the Leftists, especially because the celebrants will walk through the "Moslem Quarter" of the Old City. Flying flags under the noses of these "occupied" Arabs is intolerable oppression, even though these Arabs have Israeli citizenship and are welcome to join the celebrations and wave flags with the others if they wish.
So now a group of about 100 radical leftists has placed an ad in the press this week, paid for by you-know-who, denouncing plans to wave Israeli flags in Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day. The ad says that as peace seekers the signatories demand that the government and police prohibit the waving of flags in the "Muslim Quarter" of the Old City, which - they add - is near the Temple Mount and the day will be close to Ramadan. It should be noted that the signers do not express any opposition to PLO, Hamas, or ISIS flags flying on the PLO-controlled Temple Mount itself, nor in any leftist street rallies anywhere else in the country.
So who are the brave souls devoted to freedom of speech and true democracy who have signed this petition demanding the suppression of Israeli flag waving? Some of them are notorious activists in the movement to create a world boycott against Israel in the name of BDS = Boycott-Divest-Sanctions warfare against Israel, such as Tel Aviv University's purple-haired faculty dingbat Rachel Giora or anti-Israel ex-diplomat Alon Liel.
Some others are also Tenured Extremists. One signer is Liel's constant sidekick, the "Peace Now" professor Amiram Goldblum from the Hebrew University, who has devoted much of his career to demonizing Israel as a fascist apartheid regime while he himself opposes freedom of speech and democracy in Israel and claims Judaism itself is the root of all that is wrong in the Middle East. He is joined by Ze'ev Sternhell from the Hebrew University, a Marxist anti-Zionist who once called for terrorists to murder Jewish settlers and wants student Zionists to be suppressed because they are "fascists." A few dozen other radical leftist sheep join in the herd to sign.
The rage among leftists over the flying of the flag on Jerusalem Reunification Day is actually a thin disguise for what really is bothering the Left and what its real agenda is. The Left is not really opposed to flag waving but to Jerusalem Reunification. It wants Israel back behind its pre-1967 Auschwitz borders, with the Western Wall a Muslim shrine in "Palestine's" hegemony, and with tens of thousands of rockets raining down upon the rump Israel that will temporarily remain if the Left ever manages to impose its agenda on the country.