18 Arrested at Israeli Nationalist Flag March Through East Jerusalem

Tens of thousands of Jewish Israelis joined an annual nationalist march on Wednesday through the heart of Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s 1967 capture of the city’s eastern half, with some chanting extremist slogans calling for violence against Arabs.

The rally, known as the Dance of the Flags or the Flag March, has long been a flashpoint for tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, but security forces were especially worried the event could spark violence this year because of the eight-month-long war between Israel and Hamas, and a steep rise in violence on the West Bank. The march winds through Jerusalem’s Old City toward the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites.

Chanting, dancing and waving blue-and-white Israeli flags, the marchers made their way through the Old City’s Damascus Gate into largely Palestinian areas of Jerusalem’s Old City. The marchers banged on the shutters of shops closed by Palestinian owners who feared attacks and chanted slogans that included “may your village burn down” and a biblical verse tweaked to call for “revenge on Palestine.”

The Israeli police said they arrested 13 people “involved in various violent incidents” in the Old City. Some of the Israelis attending the march also hurled bottles and jeered at journalists from Arabic news outlets, who were watching the area from a designated platform. Officers later moved in after the bottle-throwing continued, detaining five more people, the police said.

When asked about the violence against journalists, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said: “Attacks of that nature should be prevented when possible. When they can’t be prevented they should be fully prosecuted, people should be held accountable under the law.”

The demonstrators included many younger Jewish Israelis, wearing clothing emblazoned with the slogans of the religious right’s high schools and military academies.