The 2008 Beijing Olympics opened with a ceremony that left spectators jaw-dropping. 15,<> dancers, drummers, acrobats, meticulously coordinated complex performances that would be a shame to try to describe in writing. The precision and coordination displayed by the participants in the performance may have had something to do with the fact that most of them served in the Chinese army, so it can be assumed that they are used to military discipline, and perhaps even military punishment if one of them had screwed up, God forbid. China is a dictatorship, and dictatorships have quite effective tools to ensure total coordination and exemplary order even in large numbers.
Of course, usually the entertainment at the opening of the Olympics is extravagant in nature and includes many participants, but somehow the meticulous aesthetic of the Chinese evoked a whiff of coercion. Not that it bothers the Chinese much, of course. And besides, why dwell on subtleties? The show was spectacular, and the world was definitely impressed. Not because of the uniqueness of China's soldiers, but because of their ability to function as parts of a well-oiled machine.
For the sake of comparison, at Israel's torch-lighting ceremony in 2023, several dozen IDF flags marched on Mount Herzl and made the shape of an orange. With a leaf. And two hearts, as well as Iron Dome (the announcers explained the shapes to viewers at home, just in case), and the height of sophistication: a tractor with spinning wheels! The crowd on Mount Herzl applauded with the most justified enthusiasm.
Israel may be a warring country that needs a strong and deterrent army, but we are a small, family-run country, our soldiers are priceless, and there is a limit to how much you can use them for order exercises. An orange with a leaf is all right, and when the flaggers line up in the form of the words "pioneering" and "genesis" - what eye won't tear. Not because of the technical ability, but precisely because of the smiles from ear to ear of the soldiers, who differed from each other in appearance and uniform, and each had parents and relatives who could recognize them even from a distance. The story is simple: national pride, national joy and old and familiar symbols.
But there's nothing philosophers, intellectuals, and copywriters can't complicate. Under the umbrella of protest, one could mistakenly think that Memorial Day and Independence Day have become an exercise in advanced quantum physics. All this is because of a public that is apparently more sophisticated than the national average, and some of which tried to find ways to refute the axiom: We are sad on Memorial Day and happy on Independence Day. We love the country and we love the IDF and its soldiers. People more sophisticated than us have failed to explain to us that we are politically wrong, so they have no choice but to take the national symbols from us, empty them of content and turn them against us.
It is known that demonstrations need props, such as a flag, and it is known that black flags have failed to achieve their political purpose. With the announcement of the legal reform, several PLO flags flew at the demonstrations in Kaplan, raising once again the suspicion that this was another left-wing demonstration aimed at expressing a permanent sense of disgust against a right-wing government, and perhaps also a right-wing government in general. In order to eliminate this suspicion, the demonstrations against the reform in the forest were equipped with blue and white flags, to which more or less all the symbols of the state were attached: the singing of "Hatikvah" at the end of the demonstrations, and an exciting – and artificial infatuation with the Declaration of Independence, which commits to Judaism and the vision of the prophets of Israel, to a Jewish state – and not to a state of all its citizens – and to the borders of the partition plan.
On the morning of Independence Day, several members of one of the protest youth movements hung the Declaration of Independence and the flag at the foot of Masada and the Qumran Caves. In doing so, they turned into an accessory not only the flag and scroll - these have been in use for several weeks - but also Masada. Another daring squad succeeded in a complex operation to hang the Declaration of Independence from Herzl's famous balcony in Basel. Herzl also became an accessory. Basel too.
Memorial Day didn't seem like a suitable candidate for objectification, but the gadget people tried anyway: several hundred demonstrators with blue-and-white flags stood by the roads leading to the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery. They called it an honor guard. No, friends. This is another well-equipped demonstration. The fallen were already objectified at one of the demonstrations in Kaplan with a huge sign saying "In their deaths they ordered," thus as if fallen IDF soldiers had been recruited to emerge from their graves and demonstrate for the right cause. Whoever is able to turn any value into an accessory will also be accessorized with bereavement and national mourning. How empty there is in this pose, trying to hang national symbols like plastic medals on a chest swollen with vanity and narcissism.
But most of us take national symbols and days seriously. We love them at face value, without subversive subtext. This year we ranked fourth in the world on the UN Happiness Index, and regardless of the political situation, we are always high on the list. And we don't wave the flag because it's fashionable or stick stickers saying "faithful to the Declaration of Independence" because that's what the guys do.
In fact, we admit that like the demonstrators who drag the scroll from demonstration to demonstration, we are not very familiar with it. Still, out of respect for both the scroll and the fact that we're a bit superficial, we didn't turn it into another symbol of d-mo-kart-ya between the slaves in red and shushka.
We hang a flag on the balcony around Holocaust Remembrance Day, and we bought it at the supermarket for 20 shekels, they didn't give it to us to make us look Zionist. And we go to the cemeteries to unite with the fallen and honor their memory, and from time to time also to hear speeches by politicians that we do not tolerate. And if we watch the Memorial Day ceremony on Channel 13, we don't need them to interrupt the "God Full of Mercy" prayer and switch to a split screen because someone shouted at Ben-Gvir in Beersheba.
We see the torch ceremony and get excited, and then go out into town and buy overpriced Chinese-made inflatable hammers, because that's what we do on Independence Day. We have not dressed a new ideology on old symbols and are trying to impose it on others.
And since we are simple people with simple symbols, it is difficult to confuse us. When we see the flags and flags of the IDF marching in the shape of a tractor, we love them as they are, we do not envy the Chinese or the Israeli flags from Ali Express.
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