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"The Jerusalem day march is more appropriately also called “the march of flags”, and that's exactly what I witnessed last Sunday when thousands of Israeli flags swept the streets of the old city of Jerusalem. Flags represent national identity, independence and sovereignty. For those who are still fighting for their freedom and rights flags represent the hope that these will be achieved, and they represent victory for those who have achieved it. The thousands of Israeli flags that stormed East Jerusalem were a clear message: we are the sovereigns here, we own this land, we can place our flags here - The whole of Jerusalem is ours!
Thousands of flags closed down the entire old city of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian market in Jerusalem, and several more neighborhoods in East Jerusalem that the march did not even go through. All the roads in East Jerusalem surrounding the old city from north, east and south were closed down -- not to allow the flag bearers to march, but to prevent Palestinians from walking in their streets.
A couple hundreds of Palestinians and a hand full of Israeli activists tried to stage a counter demonstration. We were determined to say "No, this is not Israel, it's Palestine, the people who live here are Palestinians. The streets, the shops, the cars, and the people that were all closed down and invisible for the marchers - they are all here, you must see them!" We were fenced in across the street from the Damascus gate, "allowed" by the police to protest as long as we stayed inside our cage. No one could see us, while small settler groups ahead of the march are dancing on the streets, blocking them and waiving their blue and white flags with no interference. An old lady outside our cage, but safe on the side walk was pushed back by police again and again until they formed a line isolating her from the rest of us, then grabbed her and pushed her into a police car - the first arrest of many that day.
The settlers were still dancing with their flags, while the Palestinian protest desperately tried to raise their flags high enough to be seen through the line of police that seemed to be the buffer between the two protests: the blue and white protest and the red, green, black and white one. The only problem is, the uniforms of that "neutral buffer" carried a small white and blue flag - just to remind us to make no mistake and remember who's side the police is. The second arrest was minutes later when the border police stormed into our caged protest, running after a crowd running away from them. They caught one Palestinian youth who's main crime was that he ran from them, but just not fast enough. It was the second arrest of the day, and more importantly the running crowd was dispersed and the police blocked the way back."
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/05/march-of-the-flags.html
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