Uncategorized
On Israel’s 75th Independence Day, its flag has taken on new meaning as a protest symbol
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Avigail Arnheim has been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu for years, starting with the demonstrations in Jerusalem that began in 2020, calling on him to resign as Israel’s prime minister.
When Netanyahu returned to office in December, Arnheim again took to the streets — this time to protest Netanyahu’s attempt to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of its power. And now, she comes armed with what she sees as a potent symbol: an Israeli flag emblazoned with the words of the country’s Declaration of Independence.
“I feel that the people of Israel woke up, and finally understands that life needs to come with values, with morals and with caring,” she said at a mass protest Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, as Israel began celebrating its 75th Independence Day. Arnheim believes those ideas are reflected in the declaration, which was signed on the day of Israel’s founding, traces the connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, and pledges democracy and human rights.
She added, “I think that the meaning of the flag has received a place in a society that wasn’t aware of it for a long time.”
Seeing the streets of Israel festooned with flags is one of the hallmarks of the country’s Independence Day, called Yom Haatzmaut in Hebrew. It’s common for flags to line streets and hang from balconies. A popular children’s song sung on the holiday begins, “The whole land is flags.”
But this year, Israel’s quintessential national symbol has taken on a different meaning for some, as the hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters have, for months, made the flag the icon of their cause. The flag has become so associated with the protests that Zichron Yaakov, a city north of Tel Aviv, briefly banned the flag and images of the Declaration of Independence from its Independence Day parade.
Voices on the right have chafed against the idea that the flag now indicates opposition to the government. But there was little, if any, skepticism about that idea on the streets of Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, where protesters enthusiastically adapted a range of Independence Day traditions to express their opinions.
Thousands of Israeli protesters wave flags during a rally against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul bills in Jerusalem, March 27, 2023. (Gili Yaari/Flash90)
Some protesters viewed their embrace of the flag as a corrective that now allows the flag to represent what they see as Israel’s founding aspirations, following years during which it was perceived as a symbol of Israel’s right wing. Before this year’s protests, another prominent political association for the flag was with religious nationalists who hold an annual “flag march” in Jerusalem’s Old City that has stoked Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
“It’s a symbol that had been hijacked for way too long by the right,” said Roy Rob, a graphic designer at the Tel Aviv rally who splits his time between Israel and Brooklyn. “It’s the same in the States: The American flag has really been hijacked and pigeonholed.”
Regarding the Israeli flag, he added, “Now it’s being democratized again. It makes sense that the people who really care about the origin of Israel, what Israel is all about, use the original symbols of it.”
Some right-wingers aren’t ready to yield Israel’s national symbols. Gideon Dokov, an editor at the right-leaning newspaper Makor Rishon, called the idea that the flag represents opposition to the judicial overhaul “absurd.”
“By mistake or intentionally, it seems that in recent months, there are those who are trying to take ownership of the national symbols — the flag and the Declaration of Independence — on behalf of the protests, just as they’re trying to take ownership of [the concept of] democracy,” Dokov wrote earlier this month. “Both are incorrect.”
In any case, flags were ubiquitous at Tuesday night’s protest. When asked where they got theirs, several protesters made a perplexed face that seemed to ask, “Where have you been all this time?”
The flags, they said, aren’t hard to get. Many were distributed for free at earlier protests, along with black T-shirts that read, “De-mo-cra-cy” in Hebrew block letters, copying the central chant of the demonstrations. Other shirts, like Rob’s, which read, “There’s no democracy with occupation,” were also distributed by activist groups at earlier protests. Many flags included the phrase “Free in our land,” which comes from Israel’s national anthem.
Others already had flags at home, and some bought them recently. At the protest, a man who was selling the flags and other assorted tchotchkes out of a stuffed shopping cart said the flag itself, without a pole, costs around $5.50. He said he bought his merchandise from stores and was reselling it, but would not provide further details.
A flag vendor stands with his wares during a Yom Haatzmaut celebration and anti-government protest in Tel Aviv, April 25, 2023. (Ben Sales)
The flags with the Declaration of Independence text, Arnheim said, went for about $13.75 and were sold by their creator via group chats used to organize the protests. Nati Hochberg, who traveled from a town north of Tel Aviv to demonstrate, said he bought his flag (with pole) for some $11 at a hardware store, after someone stole a previous flag of his from his motorcycle.
“We’ve taken back what belongs to us,” Hochberg said of the flag. His friend Tal Vardi, who traveled with him and has had his flag for years, added, “This population for many years ceded these symbols and now it’s taking them back. … I don’t know if it happened coincidentally, but it’s a feeling that it also belongs to us.”
That the flag has turned into a protest symbol, said one woman from northern Israel who declined to give her name, elicits a mixture of “pride and sadness” regarding the political conflict raging in the country.
“It’s clearly preferable for this not to be,” she said while holding a flag identical to Arnheim’s. “But if it is like this, at least the flag should have meaning.”
The protesters didn’t shy away from adapting other Independence Day pastimes, either. A white, foamy spray traditionally blasted by children on the holiday was being rebranded at the protest as “democracy snow” (one big can for about $2.75).
At a less crowded area of the protest, someone used the spray to spell out “democracy” in large letters on the ground. On a nearby bicycle path, the word “Leave,” used as a chant against Netanyahu, was also written in the spray. A cyclist stopped short before running it over.
A Tel Aviv protest at the start of Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, featured a sea of flags, April 25, 2023. (Ben Sales)
Soft plastic hammers, another holiday mainstay, were also visible throughout the crowd. And a DJ blasted classic Israeli dance music in the middle of the demonstration, including the American Jewish summer camp favorite “Zodiac,” sung by Yaron Hadad.
In general, signs of the protests freckle Tel Aviv, which has been the nerve center of the demonstrations and the bastion of Israel’s left-wing minority. Municipal bus stops bear signs playing on the words of the national anthem and implying that the protests will keep Israel “Free from racism,” “Free from repression of women” and more. Graffiti supporting the protests — such as “Bibi is a traitor” — also isn’t hard to find, though there is also a smattering of pro-overhaul graffiti such as one message calling Israel’s Supreme Court a dictatorship.
Some paraphernalia at the demonstration trumpeted specific causes, like an LGBTQ pride flag, a flag that spelled out “democracy” in the colors of the Israeli and Palestinian flags, or a T-shirt, given out by an self-styled “moderate majority” activist group, that read “I [heart] Bagatz,” the Hebrew acronym for the Supreme Court.
Some participants got more creative. At a table in a sparse area, a few people offered free alcohol to passersby while a young man using a megaphone sang “Democracy and arak” to the tune of the famous riff from the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”
The idea, his colleague Ron said, was to give people free drinks to celebrate the country and the protests — which they hope will preserve the possibility for young people to get an education and find dignified work.
“In general, this is our last shot to save democracy, so everyone who wants to save democracy gets a shot as a gift from us,” said Ron, 23, who declined to give his last name. ”We love everyone, and we love democracy.”
—
The post On Israel’s 75th Independence Day, its flag has taken on new meaning as a protest symbol appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Gaza Needs Massive Boost in Emergency Aid After Ceasefire, UN Relief Chief Says
A satellite image shows trucks with aid waiting by the Egypt-Gaza border, October 15, 2025. Photo: Satellite image ©2025 Vantor/Handout via REUTERS
The United Nations is seeking a dramatic boost in humanitarian aid for Gaza, saying the hundreds of relief trucks cleared to enter the devastated enclave under a ceasefire were nowhere near the thousands needed to ease a humanitarian disaster.
Tom Fletcher, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and its top emergency relief coordinator, told Reuters in an interview that thousands of humanitarian vehicles must enter weekly to avert further catastrophe.
“We have 190,000 metric tons of provisions on the borders waiting to go in and we’re determined to deliver. That’s essential life-saving food and nutrition,” Fletcher said.
Israel’s two-year air and ground war against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas drove almost all Gaza’s 2.2 million people from their homes, and famine is present in the north, global monitors say.
“GOOD BASE,” BUT NOT ENOUGH
Israeli officials said 600 trucks have been approved to enter the blockaded territory under the current US-brokered truce deal. Fletcher called that a “good base” but said it was not enough to meet the scale of need.
Fletcher called for over 50 international NGOs, including Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council, to be allowed to bring in aid, saying the issue has been raised with Israel, the United States and other regional partners.
“We cannot deliver the scale necessary without their presence and their engagement. So we want to see them back in. We are advocating on their behalf,” he said.
Fletcher said the looting of aid trucks – a frequent scourge while fighting continued – had dropped sharply in recent days as deliveries increased.
“If you’re only getting in 60 trucks a day, desperate, hungry people will attack those trucks. The way to stop the looting is to deliver aid at massive scale and get the private sector and commercial markets operating again.”
Fletcher welcomed the Western-backed Palestinian Authority’s offer to play a role in reopening the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to aid deliveries, expected on Thursday after a delay imposed by Israel over what it called Hamas’ slowness to return bodies of dead hostages under the ceasefire deal.
He said medical evacuations through the crossing would be a priority, citing recent talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He said that for the fresh aid efforts to succeed the ceasefire agreement must be sustained. “We need peace. That way we can massively scale up our operations. We need the world to stay behind this peace plan.”
Twenty remaining living hostages were freed on Monday in exchange for thousands of Palestinians jailed in Israel.
Uncategorized
Syrian Leader Ahmed al-Sharaa Meets with Russia’s Putin at Kremlin
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa attends an interview with Reuters at the presidential palace, in Damascus, Syria, March 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Russia on Wednesday for an official visit, his first since taking office in December 2024, according to a Reuters report.
The visit marks a significant moment in Syrian-Russian relations following the ouster of former president Bashar al-Assad.
Saudi broadcaster Al-Hadath reported that al-Sharaa is expected to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to hand over Assad, a longtime Moscow ally who fled to Russia after last year’s coup, along with other members of the former regime accused of “crimes against Syrians.”
According to Syria’s official news agency, SANA, “the two leaders will discuss regional and international developments, and ways to strengthen cooperation between Syria and Russia.”
A Syrian government source told Reuters that discussions are also likely to include the future of Russia’s military presence in Syria specifically the naval base in Tartous and the air base in Khmeimim, both located in the country’s northwest.
In recent weeks, speculation has surrounded Assad’s fate. The New York Post reported that he was poisoned in Russia about a month ago and briefly hospitalized in critical condition before being released. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed Assad was poisoned at his heavily guarded villa near Moscow, where he has resided since his flight from Damascus.
The visit coincides with preparations for Syria’s first parliamentary elections since Assad’s removal, signaling a potential new phase in the country’s post-war political landscape.
Uncategorized
War strained the Israel-Vatican bond. Will the pope use the ceasefire to heal those wounds?
As the ceasefire took hold this weekend, Pope Leo XIV called it “a spark of hope in the Holy Land.”
To understand the new pope’s approach to Israel, after he came into his role at a time of unusually strained relations between the Vatican and Israel, a bit of history helps.
The Catholic narrative when it comes to the Jewish state is one of initial opposition, followed by resigned acceptance, and eventually, formal and diplomatic acceptance. At the same time, since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the Church has embodied a growing love and respect of the Jewish people. In the case of Pope Saint John Paul II, it even gently edged toward a mild Catholic Zionism.
Now, after the late Pope Francis sometimes dropped the ball when it came to the Middle East — and was, rightly in some instances, accused of showing partiality to the Palestinians against Israel, or unwittingly reiterating anti-Jewish tropes — Pope Leo is bringing a balanced diplomatic and theological approach to the issues. He listens carefully, is less impulsive, and more strategic.
‘We cannot recognize the Jewish people’
Initially, the church was strongly opposed to Zionism. In 1904, Pope Pius X told Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, that he could not support Zionism for two reasons.
First, as Herzl recorded in his diary, Pius said “The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people.” Religious Judaism had no “further validity,” in Pius’ eyes, as it “was superseded by the teachings of Christ.”
In response to Herzl’s attempt to make an argument for Zionism that was not based on religion, Pius was even more adamant: any religionless group was far worse than a group that, like the Jews, practiced a religion he would not acknowledge.
Yet Pius was, paradoxically, full of compassion for Jews suffering persecution. The core of his approach to Israel could be attributed to a theological attitude known as supersessionism, which is not a doctrine of the Catholic Church, but runs deep in its bloodstream.
Supersessionism teaches that God used the Jews as a vehicle to prepare for Jesus, and that when Jesus came, the Jewish people killed him, cursing themselves. As punishment, the Jews were expelled from their historic land, and their religion was invalidated. (Nevertheless, St. Augustine suggested the Jewish people retained a divine role, through offering testimony to the truth of Christ by their scripture, known under the Church as the Old Testament.)
The radical changes of Nostra Aetate
So far, not so good.
For many subsequent decades, the Vatican had no incentive to support Israel. In 1947, the Vatican never endorsed United Nations Resolution 181, which put forward a plan for separate Jewish and Palestinian states in the Holy Land. The Church preferred the structure that had been in place during Ottoman rule over Palestine, which ended in 1918. In that period, the “millet system” ensured religious freedoms, with 19th-century decrees securing Christian denominational sites and rights.
Under the Ottomans, the status quo arrangements regarding holy sites in Jerusalem were also favorable to Catholicism.
But the Ottomans weren’t coming back. And the state of Israel was, eventually, founded and internationally recognized. So, given the Vatican’s respect for international law, it came to a gradual pragmatic acceptance of the State of Israel.
Matters changed in 1965 with the publication of Nostra Aetate at the Second Vatican Council, convened by Angelo Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII. In the light of the Holocaust and widespread Catholic complicity with anti-Jewishness in that time, Roncalli — who saved thousands of fleeing Jews while papal nuncio in Turkey during the war — had become a resolute opponent of antisemitism.
Roncalli asked the council to publish a document that rejected the deicide charge, which declared that all Jews in Jesus’ time, and subsequently, were guilty of deicide — the killing of God. This move, he hoped, would defang Christian antisemitism.
The document’s fourth paragraph was its great achievement. It rejected the deicide charge, without denying the scriptural accounts. And it recovered St. Paul’s teaching that God’s promises to his people are irrevocable, articulated in Romans 11:29. That meant the Jewish covenant was valid, in contrast to supersessionism.
Finally, it unequivocally condemned antisemitism, without defining that hatred in detail.
Full diplomatic recognition
While many Catholics still today know nothing about Nostra Aetate, Pope John Paul II, 15 years after the document’s publication, moved into high gear in pushing the implications of its teachings into the Catholic mainstream. He was a fierce critic of antisemitism during the second world war in Poland, and witnessed from his underground seminary the ravages of the Holocaust.
Under his pontificate, he established full diplomatic recognition of Israel through a 1993 Fundamental Agreement, which obliquely acknowledged the religious dimensions of this new reality.
He established good relations with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. He begged God’s forgiveness for the Church’s persecution of the Jewish people.
Informally, in non-authoritative speeches, he showed an awareness that the return of Jews to their biblical land had religious dimensions.
The Church and the Palestinians
This is half the story of the history behind Pope Leo’s decision-making today.
The other half concerns Catholic support for the Palestinians, and Catholic concerns about Arab Christians, of whom there are an estimated 10-15 million in the Middle East.
The Vatican has long supported Palestinian refugees through its charitable agencies. While Pope John Paul II established stronger ties between the Vatican and Israel, he also, in 1999, spoke of “Palestinian’s natural right to a homeland,” and concluded a Fundamental Agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 2000.
After the U.N. accepted Palestine as a non-member observer state in 2012, the Vatican recognized the state of Palestine in 2015. Internally, none of this was seen as incompatible with the Vatican’s close relations with the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
But the Israeli government thought otherwise, as the Vatican had recognized a state that, in Israel’s eyes, did not exist.
Pope Leo’s immediate predecessor, Francis, did some damage to the Vatican-Israel relationship, including through his citation of a biblical text often deployed against the Jews to speak of evil on the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, and his implied criticisms of Israel’s incursion into Gaza in its early days as terrorism. (I think Francis’ more controversial choices regarding Israel were related to his temperament, rather than indicative of a change of course regarding the basic orientation of the Catholic Church.)
Pope Leo’s first moves
On the day of his election, Leo wrote to Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious affairs at the American Jewish Committee. “Trusting in the assistance of the Almighty,” he wrote, “I pledge to continue and strengthen the Church’s dialogue and cooperation with the Jewish people in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Nostra Aetate.”
Twelve days later, when speaking to Jews and Muslims at a meeting convened in Rome, he reiterated: “The theological dialogue between Christians and Jews remains ever important and close to my heart.” He continued, “Even in these difficult times, marked by conflicts and misunderstandings, it is necessary to continue the momentum of this precious dialogue of ours.”
To my mind — although he hasn’t asked my advice! — Leo might consider developing the Church’s teachings on the Jewish people in one way.
In past Church teachings, Jews were expelled from Israel as part of their punishment for the death of Christ. But since the deicide charge has now been rejected, that punishment is no longer tenable. Is it time for Catholics to teach that the Jewish return to the land of Israel may well be part of the promises made by God that are irrevocable?
This is not to affirm the extreme religious nationalism of far-right Israeli ministers like Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben-Gvir, but rather to provide breathing space for moderate Zionism. Moving to such a teaching would also not undermine the Church’s support for the Palestinian people, but rather give responsible credibility to the Vatican’s continued support of the two state solution.
It is also not to suggest that Leo should cease to be outspoken about the suffering of Palestinians. Like the pope who came before him, his empathy for Palestinians has so far been a hallmark of his papacy.
After the only Catholic Church in Gaza, the Church of the Holy Family, was hit by shrapnel — or shelled directly — on July 17, Leo called for the end of the “barbarity of war,” the protection of religious sites, and proper respect for civilians. He subsequently received a call from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who apologised for this incident.
He met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in September discussing the urgent need for a ceasefire, humanitarian access for Gaza and a two state solution. He plans to visit Lebanon soon to show solidarity with Middle Eastern Christians. His papacy will be characterised by his efforts to reconcile differences — as he has been doing so successfully within the Catholic Church.
As the Middle East moves carefully toward peace, in the wake of the recent ceasefire, Leo must walk this tightrope, keeping these two deep commitments in careful balance: a love of the Jewish people and a love of the Palestinian people. This is his signature statement: seeking peace between peoples and nations using all the power of his office.
The post War strained the Israel-Vatican bond. Will the pope use the ceasefire to heal those wounds? appeared first on The Forward.