Fashion statement: Wearing an Israeli flag in NYC is FIERCE this season!

I just got done watching a video of some pro-Israeli protesters, demonstrating in the streets of New York City. "Wipe them all out!" they cried, talking about Palestinian women and children in Gaza. "We are being forced to kill their children to save our children," one protester said. Amazing. While viewing this video, I started to get an insight into how Germans might have felt during Nazi times -- chauvinism, group-think and the justification of the unjustifiable at its finest hour.

And speaking of chauvinism, a lot of these American protesters were waving Israeli flags and wearing them around their necks. What kind of a fashion statement is that? Why are people who appear to be American citizens devotedly waving Israeli flags -- and carrying signs that read, "Thank you for fighting OUR war!"

Just exactly where do these people's allegiances lie?

PS: I just received the following e-mail from the Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem (http://ARIJ.org), an organization partly funded by the United Methodist Church -- with regard to the current situation in Gaza: "From a recent phone conversation with a family in Gaza I learned that families are now afraid to leave the buildings for fear of the fall-out from [white] phosphorus. Also I was told that the air in the buildings is becoming difficult to breathe. As the Israeli army advances farther into residential neighborhoods in the cities, the option of 'taking refuge' anywhere that is 'safe' becomes less and less of a possibility for civilians."

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Here's the URL to the painting of the Israeli flag as seen by Palestinians: http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/954/israelitanksfs9.jpg

Max Blumenthal's video: http://www.alternet.org/audits/119372/