By Jerry Ginsberg
Each year, the Jerusalem Flag March Parade in the Old City brings assaults on Palestinians, property damage, and racist chants. Police sometimes intervene, but often do little to stop the incitement. Jerusalem Day, on May 15th, is a national holiday marking the city’s capture from Jordanian control after the Six-Day War in 1967. On this day, far-right youths march through the Old City, harassing and attacking Arab shopkeepers. The flag march, organized by far-right groups, is when tensions are at their highest as participants walk through the Old City carrying Israeli flags.
In recent years, this event has attracted extremist groups, and authorities rarely push back. These groups include the ‘hilltop youth,’ who are radical settlers from illegal outposts, the far-right soccer fan club La Familia, and some marginalized youth.
This year, the situation in the Old City did not change. Despite police blockades, Jewish mobs entered the area, searching for shops that remained open. Most shopkeepers in the Muslim Quarter closed their businesses out of fear of violence.
Before the march, many left-wing organizations sent hundreds of volunteers to the area. These volunteers confronted rioters peacefully, walked with residents, and helped protect Palestinian property. Their level of organization is encouraging and has proved to lessen the violence from the right-wing mobs.
The right-wing groups attacked not only Palestinians but also journalists and anyone they considered ‘leftists.’ Activists who tried to protect Palestinians and their property were often targeted. Many were spat on, insulted, or physically attacked. In most cases, police removed the activists instead of the rioters. Compared to previous years, Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reports that the violence is much less thanks to the participation of the left-wing non-violent organizations.
The Nakba
This state-enforced lockdown of Jerusalem is similar to the forced evictions and loss of property seen in 1948 and with ongoing Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory. The Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the displacement and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which happened alongside the creation of the State of Israel.
The racism, violence, and cruelty seen each year on Jerusalem Day are closely connected to the ongoing “Nakba” in Palestine. Seven months after the “ceasefire” began on October 10, Israeli forces have killed at least 856 Palestinians and now control more than half of the Gaza Strip.
United Nations Resolution 242 views East Jerusalem, where many people were displaced in 1948 and 1967, as the rightful capital of a future Palestinian state. It considers this area occupied by Israel.
The resolution calls for Israeli armed forces to withdraw from territories occupied during conflicts. It stresses that “the acquisition of territory by war” is not acceptable and says that peace depends on respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the region.
The Solution
The answer is to support a two-state solution under U.N. Resolution 242, where Israel withdraws its troops from occupied Palestine. The two countries must work together to bring peace and stability to the city and the region.
However, we know that some groups, such as Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, favor a one-state solution where one people oppresses another. The only way to end the reign of right-wing reaction is to fight it through peaceful, non-violent action, as the many left-wing organizations have done during the Flag Day march. The UJPFO stands with those working for peace in Palestine, Israel, and around the world to end the violence in Jerusalem.