Of flags and dissent

Editorial

While Vancouverites were appending Canadian flags to cars and waving them out windows last weekend in the aftermath of the cherry-on-top hockey final gold medal goal, an Israeli flag was being set alight in an annual ritual slightly less festive.

The burning of the Israeli flag was not, this time, in Tehran or London or Berkeley. This time it was in Jerusalem. Those setting it alight were members of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement.

The Neturei Karta have courted controversy to make their point that Israel’s creation in 1948 was an act of defiance against the will of God. They are motivated by the belief that Jews’ return to nationhood is a matter of divine will that cannot be realized in the absence of Mashiach, the Messiah. Zionism, they believe, is an affront to God. It is common for Neturei Karta members to use American dollars in financial transactions, rather than Israeli shekels, and to refuse to visit the Kotel, believing it to have been befouled by Zionism.

Zionism makes strange bedfellows, as does opposition to Zionism, evidently. Not satisfied to let the wages of sin be their own reward, Neturei Karta members actively agitate against the state of Israel, allying with the most venal enemies of the state. There is, even within this fringe group, a radical movement, whose leader, Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, endorsed Yasser Arafat as the rightful sovereign of the land where Israel sits and who served as Arafat’s minister of Jewish affairs.

In 2006, several members of the radical sect visited Iran to participate in a notorious Holocaust-denial conference and commended that country’s president for calling for Israel to be wiped from the map.

To their credit, the “mainstream” Neturei Karta, led by Rabbi Zelig Reuven Katzenellenbogen, condemned the radicals for participation in the Tehran event, though the condemnation carried its own strange twists.

“It is now close to 60 years since the Zionists established their rule over Eretz Yisroel (the Land of Israel) by founding the impure Zionist state, which brazenly stole the name ‘Israel’ and has waged a full and open war against God through its mere existence,” read the statement. “And this new path, which has never been the path of our forefathers and our rabbis, to replace the study of the Jewish viewpoint regarding the exile with matters of state and political affairs, and to mingle with the peoples, and to try to bring about the dismantlement of the Zionist state by force.... And because of this we have found it to be our duty to clarify that these actions go straight against the views of the leadership of Neturei Karta.... And it is the total opposite of the ways of Neturei Karta. We must clarify how much we have been hurt by the huge desecration of God’s Name caused by these actions and it is impossible to remain silent on this issue.”

The flag-burning in Jerusalem, and at other Neturei Karta centres around the world, is evidently an annual Purim tradition, condemning Israel as the “the modern-day Amalek,” referring to the tribe that attacked the Israelites after their escape from bondage in Egypt. In Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood, the 20 or so members who burned the Israeli flag, also waved Palestinian flags, which they did not burn.

The group provided for sale very unique costumes for Purim celebrants. No Queen Esthers for little Neturei Karta girls, but available for purchase were SS and Luftwaffe uniforms, Hitler Youth outfits and Einsatzgruppe (death squad) uniforms. For those with an interest in earlier history, Inquisition costumes were on offer.

At a time when university students around the world are facing down the external hatred represented by “Israel Apartheid Week,” it seems incredible that such venomous anti-Zionism could come from Jews. It is, in its own way, a distinctly Jewish phenomenon to tolerate even the seemingly most antithetical points of view. Consider, though, the message actually being sent by this act of vandalism.

The burning of the flag by Neturei Karta members is a mind-boggling phenomenon, but demonstrates something about the state of Israel. As outraged as many may be at this desecration, it was allowed to take place. Imagine the fate of dissidents in Syria or Saudi Arabia who would dare such an act. Imagine the fate of Jews in almost any country on earth were they to incinerate the national flag. In its perverted way, the Neturei Karta have demonstrated Israel’s extraordinary tolerance to dissent.

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