Posted on 11/29/2012 1:06:01 PM PST by Eleutheria5
Police pushed MKs Eldad and Ben Ari and stopped them from burning PLO flags in protest of UN statehood bid.
Video
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(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
Forgive my ignorance, but what’s an “MK”?
Member of the Kneset, the Israeli Parliament
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Why is it illegal to burn the flag of a terrorist group?
For peace sake, set them free and give them a cigarette lighter!
Member of Kinesset (their parliament)
Q: What’s a PLO flag?
A: It’s the ONLY one a U.N. cop will save from burning....
Fake country, fake flag.
Q: What’s a PLO flag?
A: it’s a dirty diaper with a bullet hole through the middle of it.
Ben Ari is an individual who cares more about publicity than practicality.
What was this supposed to accomplish? That he can imitate the stupidity of Israel's enemies?
“There is a symbolic difference between a random private citizen burning a flag and a member of the Knesset - an official representative of the Israeli Republic - doing it. “
And as a member of the Knesset, he may burn it or not, because of the symbolic difference. It is not up to a police officer to dictate to a member of the Knesset what symbolic statement he might wish to make. As the representative of a sovereign nation, he can make whatever statement he wants, and other members of Knesset can make symbolic statements to counter his. There is also a symbolic difference between a police officer restraining a member of Knesset making a statement in an orderly fashion, and overlooking a private citizen making a similar statement in a riotous, confrontational fashion, especially when the flag is a PLO flag.
“Ben Ari is an individual who cares more about publicity than practicality.
What was this supposed to accomplish? That he can imitate the stupidity of Israel’s enemies?”
Don’t know. Don’t care. Don’t know Ben Ari. Immaterial. If he can plant a tree in a new park as a symbolic statement, he can also burn a flag, so long as the flame remains under control. What symbolic statement he chooses to make is up to him, not the police.
But I would guess that this was meant as payback for the countless Israeli flags burnt throughout the Muslim world. They reject the reality of our state, so he chose to reject, in his capacity as an MK, the assertion of Hamastan, or whatever they’re planning to call this bogus entity.
I’m voting Ihud Leumi. As MKs, they’ve gone into Bedouin villages to recover stolen livestock, and dared unwilling police officers to stay outside and let MKs be killed. I respect that more than symbolic gestures, and wouldn’t be surprised if the police intervention was part of the script for this stunt.
OK. So he’s a jerk. Besides the point here, but he hasn’t won my vote anyway.
Ben Ari is an individual who cares more about publicity than practicality.
What was this supposed to accomplish? That he can imitate the stupidity of Israel's enemies?
Why shouldn't "an official representative of the Israeli republic" burn a PLO flag? I don't get it.
If a member of the government does something public and symbolic, it has consequences for the government beyond the consequences that would occur for a private citizen.
If the US were in negotiations with Mexico and a US Congressman publicly burned a Mexican flag, it would compromise the conduct of those negotiations.
That Congressman didn't get his way through the Constitutional process, so he decides to try and derail the process by using his official status to create further difficulties for his own country.
Ben Ari is in the Knesset. The Knesset and Israel's Basic Laws have a process. If he does not want to follow that process, he should resign and protest as a private citizen.
You regard the "Palestinian Authority" (heir to Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization) as a legitimate negotiating partner, on a par with Mexico?
You are correct. The fact that he is a disagreeable and stupid person is beside the point of the article.
But his New Testament stunt is illustrative of his general character:
He rips up a New Testament because he knows: (1) Christians will not respond with violence and (2) Christians reverence his own Scriptures as well. If a Christian were to desecrate a Torah scroll, he would be apoplectic - but he knows that Christians don't do that sort of thing. And if a deranged "Christian" actually did something that vile, that "Christian" would be disowned by every serious Christian.
He does it because he knows it doesn't work both ways. He's a chump and a coward.
He would never film himself doing that to a Koran, because he knows that his life wouldn't be worth a nickel after that.
Notice also that he is burning a PLO flag. The PLO flag is secular and it represents a dying organization that is being replaced by Hamas. He would not dare to burn a Hamas flag - because that flag contains Koranic text and because Hamas supporters are far more aggressive these days that the decrepit PLO.
Ben Ari knows precisely what he is doing.
The state of Israel recognizes it as a negotiating partner.
If I were an Israeli, I would definitely vote for a party that would derecognize the PA. Again, this is about the rule of law and not about the whether the PLO has any redeeming value.
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