The annual display of Jewish Supremacy in Palestine, known as the Flag March, is not limited to the Old City of Jerusalem. It is part of a campaign of intimidation in cities around the country that have a significant Palestinian population. This year this racist, violent display of supremacy took place in Jerusalem, Yafa ad El-Lyd.

The Torah Seed

What could be more innocuous than a seed? A Torah seed is a seed through which the Torah grows and spreads. Building bridges, connecting people to their ancient traditions, aiding those who are in need and generally developing communities steeped in the values of charity and goodwill. This is the veil behind which the Settler community is planting itself in what are known as “mixed cities.”

The world, and most Israeli Jews, concentrate only on the fanatic, racist gangs of settler communities in the West Bank. However, for several decades the same political, quasi-religious movement that created these awful communities has been moving into municipalities known as “mixed cities.” These include Yafa, El-Lyd, Ramle and a few others with large Palestinian populations.

Their purpose is twofold:

• To “plant the Torah seen in the Jewish communities,” or in other words, win the hearts and minds of poor, disenfranchised Israeli Jews, who typically live in “mixed cities.”

• To terrorize and eventually push out the Palestinian communities from these cities, making them pure and Jewish. 

This, of course, has nothing to do with Judaism. It is yet another expression of the racist ideology which created the State of Israel and is known as Zionism.

We are the landlords

Claiming ownership of Palestine has always been an important Zionist talking point. What the Torah Seed groups are doing is marching through Palestinian neighborhoods to make that point. “We are the landlords,” we heard Itmar Ben-Gvir saying as he walked through the holy sanctuary of Al-Aqsa, and this they yell into the megaphones throughout Palestinian neighborhoods, in Yafa, El-Lyd, Ramle, Hebron, and, of course, Jerusalem.

These settlers – who many people think are confined to the West Bank – are taking over by squeezing Palestinians out. We no longer see trucks with soldiers evicting Palestinians like in 1948 or 1967. Instead, we see settler gangs armed with police protection terrorizing Palestinians and making their lives unlivable. Because these cities are within the boundaries of 1948 Palestine, it is not the army that protects these thugs but the police.

Numbers

In order to claim ownership of the land, Zionists have been obsessed with demographics. It was clear from the beginning that on that front, they are losing, and so they found a formula that makes it seem as though there is a Jewish majority and an Arab minority in “Israel.”

Another sign of the Zionist obsession with demographics is that the state of Israel conducts a census almost every year – and year after year for as long as I can remember, they end up with the same calculation. Not that the numbers don’t grow, but the percentage of Arabs always remains more or less at twenty percent of the total population.

We know that for decades Palestinians account for much more than twenty percent, so how does Israel do this? Well, it is not magic; they simply lie about the numbers. Israel does not count all the Palestinians, only the ones who live in the pre-1967 borders. In other words, while Jewish Israelis are counted regardless of where they live within the country, only Palestinians who live in 1948 Palestine are accounted for. This means that the state of Israel is leaving out more than five million Palestinians from their figures.

This makes sense when one considers that successive Israeli governments and Israeli society more generally see no connection to Palestinians living in the territories taken by Israel in 1967. While Palestinians who remained in 1948 are referred to as citizens, the ones who were added as a result of the 1967 occupation have no status and, therefore, do not (officially) exist.

Two marches per year

In the city of Yafa, which officially is part of the Tel Aviv municipality, the Settlers conduct two flag marches per year. One on Israeli Independence Day and one on Jerusalem Day. The city claims that it is an expression of diversity, not unlike days when Palestinians hold a Christmas parade or a Ramadan market. But there is a difference; neither the Christmas nor Ramadan events include harassment by uniformed militarized police and plain-clothed detectives.

During these parades of racism and supremacy, Palestinian citizens of the city are instructed to stay out of sight. They are subjected to searches and seizures, and they are confined to areas where they will be out of the way of the parading gangsters with flags of hate.

In the city of El-Lyd, thousands of settlers marched through the old town, through Palestinian neighborhoods and businesses, harassing and terrorizing anyone in their path. Over the years, El-Lyd has seen some of the worst violence by settler gangs, and this parade of hate and supremacy is there to let the Palestinians in the city that El-Lyd is not theirs. In 1948, the area had been subjected to brutal massacres and of the city’s 40,000 citizens, only 400 remained. Today, the Palestinian population makes up between 30% and 40% of the population.

Palestine is not confined to the West Bank

Many people still refer to 1948 Palestine as Israel and to the West Bank as Palestine. However, these people would do well to remember that until May 1948, it was all known as Palestine and that Palestinians live throughout the entire country and endure the same hate and violence regardless of where they live, what identification card they carry or whether they are counted by the Apartheid State or not.

On a personal note – if you read this article, please leave me a note here. It does not need to be long; just a hi is fine. If you have a comment or a question, feel free to comment or ask. Thank you.

Feature photo | An Israeli man waves a flag of the ultra nationalist Jewish Terrorist movement Kach, outside Damascus gate In Jerusalem as part of a controversial flag march, May 2023. Eyal Warshavsky | Sipa via AP Images

Miko Peled is MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

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