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Last update - 11:47 22/04/2007
Will I hang the flag?
By Gideon Levy

There is a flagholder installed in my garden. The previous residents used it to fly the flag of their favorite soccer team. Since they left, the holder has remained orphaned. During my childhood, there was no question about it: My parents would take the national flag out of the cupboard each year, proudly display it on the balcony, and it would drown in the street's sea of blue and white. I would look with excitement at our decorated balcony: I was proud of the flag.

That was a long time ago. During my first trip overseas, in a youth delegation to Europe, two years after the Six-Day War, we flew the state flag on the front of the bus in which we were traveling, between France and Italy. Back then they applauded us. How proud we were to be Israelis. In recent years, the flagpole at my house stands bare.

I clearly remember when I stopped hanging the flag. It was after I saw the settlers dashing through Palestinian villages, fearsome flags waving from their cars to confront and provoke the residents of the land they had invaded. I said to myself that a flag intended for provocation and confrontation is not my flag. I later saw the flag as a land marker, establishing ownership that is not ours. In every settlement and outpost they hung the flag that was my flag as well to "establish facts on the ground."
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How can I hang at my home the same flag that flies over the homes of the Jewish settlement in the heart of Hebron, which has expelled nearly 20,000 residents from their homes? How can I hang the flag that flies on the homes of Yitzhar and Itamar, and at dozens of checkpoints designed to choke the lives of our neighbors? How can I hang the flag that flies on the jeeps that burst forth in the dead of night and spread terror in the hearts of little children? The flag became increasingly distant from me; the national flag became the flag of extreme nationalism.

It is not easy to become alienated from a flag that once was yours. It is much easier to love it, to curl up in it, to be proud of it. The U.S. is drowning in a sea of flags; every far-flung car lot is adorned with flags of stars and stripes. Canadian, Swiss and Japanese backpackers tend to attach their national flags to their backpacks - these flags look so innocent. This is not the case with my flag, which has long ceased to denote innocence. Since it has become the flag of the occupation, I have remained without a flag.

The extreme nationalistic right stole the flag from me and with it the pride in being Israeli. This act of theft is unforgivable. From an emotional perspective, this is perhaps the most mortal of blows - a blow to those who wanted to be proud of their flag. A state that was portrayed in our childhood as more righteous than any other, the state of the Jews became the state of the occupation, and its flag was expropriated for criminal purposes. We no longer travel abroad with the flag flying in front of us. Only at the March of the Living at Auschwitz and at away games of Maccabi Tel Aviv do we still wrap ourselves in the flag bearing the Jewish star, only there is it still permissible to be proud and confrontational. In Europe, they are burning Israeli flags, as we burned the effigy of "the Egyptian tyrant" in our childhood at Lag B'Omer bonfires. With our own hands, we provided reasons for those who over the years became haters of Israel. They did not always burn this flag.

Importers of Chinese-made Israeli flags report a decline in sales this year. Nonetheless, a substantial number of cars and homes are again bedecked with flags. Perhaps this is the power of habit. Perhaps it is blindness that prevents those brandishing the flags from seeing the aims the flag serves. And will I raise the flag this year on the flagpole in the garden of my home? I am exempt from deciding: Like every year, my neighbors upstairs have covered the garden with the flags of Israel Defense Forces units and the national flag, a colorful and rustling sea of flags, which they have kept since their childhood. In any case, there is no room for my flag.
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  1.   Moral sensitivity becomes monstrous misjudment 08:48  |  Shalom Freedman 22/04/07
  2.   JUST GET OUT! 08:57  |  Meir Weinstein 22/04/07
  3.   You disgust me 08:58  |  BH 22/04/07
  4.   Gideon Should Move 09:00  |  Ron 22/04/07
  5.   why not leave? 09:13  |  Hannah 22/04/07
  6.   Oh just leave us you crybaby... 09:17  |  KJJ 22/04/07
  7.   LIBERATION- Not "Occupation" 09:17  |  Yishai Kohen 22/04/07
  8.   I won`t surrender my flag, Gideon Levy 09:19  |  Tzfonit 22/04/07
  9.   G.lEVY SAYS "there is no room for my flag". There is no room for 09:20  |  Vittorio 22/04/07
  10.   WHILE Hamas flies the flag of Jihadist ethnic cleansing&murder. 09:26  |  PETER. S.M 22/04/07
  11.   Shalom Freedman: apologetic for the occupation and its 09:35  |  human being 22/04/07
  12.   Gideon Levy 09:35  |  Rami 22/04/07
  13.   At 59, Israel looks like a veteran whore that expects 09:40  |  Khalid 22/04/07
  14.   levy shows his TRUE colours :o( 09:46  |  Ari ben Yisrael 22/04/07
  15.   levy, you have no right to fly my flag, you dirty pig. 09:47  |  vladimir 22/04/07
  16.   Gideon Levi 09:50  |  Deborah 22/04/07
  17.   The Israel I love 09:51  |  Yered Shmuel 22/04/07
  18.   Go Occupy Someplace You Are Proud Of 09:58  |  Efox 22/04/07
  19.   KHALID your kidnappers,thieves,liars &murderers are the problem. 10:02  |  PETER. S.M 22/04/07
  20.   I understand Gideon - but why is he still here? 10:08  |  Uri 22/04/07
  21.   Rami...Zionist flag and Swastika have much in common 10:10  |  Rami, from Gaza 22/04/07
  22.   Reading all these responses, 10:12  |  Dirk 22/04/07
  23.   Ari Ben Yisrael: for you information more 10:13  |  German 22/04/07
  24.   Vladimir...calling G. Levy pig says much about 10:14  |  Morrocan Jew 22/04/07
  25.   Proud of being Israeli 10:17  |  GF 22/04/07
  26.   Vittorio..the liar, the fascist settler 10:17  |  Levy 22/04/07
  27.   Levy and the flag 10:19  |  Connie 22/04/07
  28.   #2 Meir for once I might ALMOST agree with you 10:19  |  Ari ben Yisrael 22/04/07
  29.   Don`t hang the flag; hang yourself, Levy 10:21  |  McQueen 22/04/07
  30.   Now you know how Southern confederates feel 10:24  |  Brien Duffy 22/04/07
  31.   Khalid 10:30  |  Connie 22/04/07
  32.   Bravo Gideon Levy, lucid voice. 10:34  |  From Brazil 22/04/07
  33.   Destroying the country while waving the flag 10:37  |  www.kibush.co.il 22/04/07
  34.   RAMI from Gaza.Ethnic cleansing?Heard of the Hamas charter? 10:37  |  PETER. S.M 22/04/07
  35.   German 10:42  |  Connie 22/04/07
  36.   German 10:42  |  Connie 22/04/07
  37.   Steal the flag back Gideon 10:43  |  Niv 22/04/07
  38.   Leviticus 19:18,"Thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself" 10:51  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 22/04/07
  39.   You don`t know what Gidon Levy does for Israel! 10:52  |  Cord H. Kaldrack 22/04/07
  40.   Second thoughts 11:01  |  Esther 22/04/07
  41.   #23 German........unusual name!!!!! 11:04  |  Ari ben Yisrael 22/04/07
  42.   The Israeli Flag 11:07  |  JAn van Mil 22/04/07
  43.   You may be right,... 11:07  |  Dirk 22/04/07
  44.   @24, moroccan jew 11:09  |  vladimir 22/04/07
  45.   @24, mor. jew. and levy is pig. 11:09  |  vladimir 22/04/07
  46.   Controlled by Germans? 11:10  |  Dirk 22/04/07
  47.   Levy on the Flag - like US during Vietnam? 11:10  |  dana 22/04/07
  48.   Levy a sign of the cancer in Israeli society 11:14  |  Jon 22/04/07
  49.   # 35 11:16  |  Cord H. Kaldrack 22/04/07
  50.   Khalid`s Stable 11:16  |  ATLAS 22/04/07
  51.   Peter SM, your intellectual level doesn`t warrant 11:19  |  Khalid 22/04/07
  52.   suggestion for Levy (fly the Hamas flag) 11:21  |  Proud Zionist 22/04/07
  53.   Connie...you resort to lie and propaganda to 11:22  |  Khalid 22/04/07
  54.   Connie...does the blood of Jews take 65 years 11:23  |  German 22/04/07
  55.   Connie...we killed six million Jews..you killed 11:25  |  German 22/04/07
  56.   German.How many Russian Jews in Germany.How many in Israel? 11:26  |  PETER. S.M 22/04/07
  57.   Peter SM: have you heard of Zionism`s charter? 11:26  |  Rami From Gaza 22/04/07
  58.   Peter SM, and the Aussie flag 11:29  |  Marilyn 22/04/07
  59.   Gideon Levy is a delusional leftitist, typically suffering from 11:30  |  Uzi 22/04/07
  60.   Connie..you are the disgrace for the following reasons: 11:32  |  Torah Jew 22/04/07
  61.   Gideon flies the flag of Hamas. 11:40  |  SystemF 22/04/07
  62.   Gideon - You are courageous and correct 11:41  |  lennybruce 22/04/07
  63.   There`s the door... 11:43  |  Ovadiah ben Avraham 22/04/07
  64.   #34 PETER SM 11:43  |  Johnboy 22/04/07
  65.   "They did not always burn this flag." 11:46  |  Ovadiah ben Avraham 22/04/07
  66.   mr. levy, why do you give in to the extremist right-wing... 11:55  |  saul a. readner 22/04/07
  67.   People like Levy were in the Judenraat during the WW2 11:58  |  Absolute Sweden 22/04/07
  68.   To Morrocan Jew 12:02  |  Rabbit 22/04/07
  69.   This piece appears to be antisemitic 12:04  |  Andras Bereny 22/04/07
  70.   the poor man 12:05  |  solemnman 22/04/07
  71.   TZFONIT (Post No. 8) 12:06  |  Johnny Weintraub 22/04/07
  72.   like Hamas you 12:08  |