‘May your village burn’: Israeli Flag March returns to East Jerusalem

Source: Aljazeera

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Far-right Israelis attack Palestinians during the Flag March, intensifying violence and racism in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Israeli settlers join the Jerusalem Day parade at the Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem, May 14, 2026 [AFP]

Uri Weltmann was tense. He’s the national field director for Standing Together, an organisation of Jewish and Palestinian peace activists, who had gathered to resist the tens of thousands of far-right Jewish marchers heading for occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.

He had reason to be worried. ‘Jerusalem Day’, marked by Jewish Israelis every year to celebrate the 1967 capture and subsequent illegal occupation of the city, has become an opportunity for thousands to be bussed in from across Israel and the occupied West Bank to participate in the ‘Flag March’, where they maraud through the Old City and attack Palestinians – as well as Jewish peace activists. Palestinians from outside the Old City were not allowed in by police.

This year’s event on Thursday saw fighting break out even before the march officially began, as ultranationalist Israelis – many of them young teenagers – attacked Palestinians in the Christian Quarter. The Israelis vandalised property, and Israeli police forced Palestinian shop owners to close.

Many other Palestinian businesses had already closed for the day, fearing attacks and harassment.

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“It’s gotten much more extreme since October 7,” said Weltmann, referring to the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, which led to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Weltmann and approximately 200 other Standing Together activists, wearing purple vests, attempted to stand between the far-right Jewish marchers and Palestinians, but were often attacked themselves.

As in previous years, the marchers shouted anti-Palestinian slogans, including ‘May your village burn’ and ‘Death to Arabs’. They have also been filmed spitting and hurling insults at Palestinians.

Police have so far arrested 13 people, including both Jews and Palestinians.

The ultranationalist marchers have the full support of the Israeli government. Earlier in the day, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led a large group of Jewish Israelis into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where he displayed the Israeli flag in front of the Dome of the Rock.

Jordan condemned Ben-Gvir’s stunt, with the Foreign Ministry calling it a “blatant violation of international law, an unacceptable provocation, and a flagrant breach of the historical and legal status quo”.

Jordan runs the Jerusalem Waqf Department, which supervises the holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem, according to a long-standing agreement. Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of any future Palestinian state.