“The country has been hijacked by a regime that views state resources as its own private property, and views its foundational values as an obstacle to the regime, to its cronies and to its survival. The torch-lighting ceremony, once the beating heart of the Israeli soul, has been transformed into a cynical showcase for a regime seeking to rewrite history. Rather than celebrate the people’s spirit of volunteering and bravery, the ceremony is used as a platform for aggrandizing a shameless government.

“This government is totally out of touch with its citizens. It has been acting as if this country were the personal property of Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife and Miri Regev (the fawning Minister of Transportation who organized the event. HS)  The ceremony seems wholly created for their own constituency. They brand anybody who thinks differently as an enemy. This is how gangs behave. In a desperate attempt to hang on to power at any cost, they are trampling over the values by which this country was founded: equality, liberty and justice…

“We call on the public at large to attend the alternative torch-lighting ceremony, which will take place at the Tel Aviv Museum plaza. Come light torches of truth, of equality and of a democratic Jewish state, in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. Come demonstrate that the Israeli spirit is stronger than any regime that had lost its way and forgotten its people.”

Those words were not written by far-left Israeli anti-occupation radicals, but rather two former IDF Chiefs of Staff, Dan Halutz and Moshe Ya’alon, who was once a Likud MK and minister of defense and who now accuses the extreme right wing government of carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, in an op-ed published in Haaretz  (April 21, 2026).

Peace Activists and Generals

I was there in the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the former “Hostage Square”, among tens of thousands of other Israelis, on the eve of Israel’s 78th Independence Day. It was extremely inspiring to see former Meretz MK Gaby Lasky, who uses her legal skills to defend protesters victimized by Ben-Gvir’s Israeli police and Palestinians attacked by the hooligan settler “hilltop youth”, Dr. Yael Admi,  co-founder of Women Wage Peace, Avi Dabush, director of Rabbis for Human Rights who was trapped in his home in Kibbutz Nirim on October 7th, together with Druze Major General Amal Asad, one of the leaders of the struggle against the racist, ethno-nationalist Nation-State Law and Palestinian-Israeli social justice activist Somaya Bashir, proudly declaring her dual identity, progressive Democrat Party MKs Na’ama Lazimi and Rabbi Gilad Kariv and founders of the Brothers in Arms civil society initiative that provided support for Israeli society after October 7th when the government was paralyzed, speaking alongside the two former IDF Chiefs of Staff. Another speaker was Weizmann Institute Prof. David Harel, President of the Israeli Academy of Arts and Sciences, who lit the torch for science and education, a colleague in the Israeli Policy Forum that promotes a two-state solution in the international community.

It was important to hear criticism of the pogroms being carried out against Palestinians in the West Bank by clearly labeled Jewish terrorists and clarion calls for peace. Each speaker made a presentation from their personal perspectives, and lit a torch while calling out the phrase “For a Jewish, Democratic and Liberal State of Israel”! The alternative ceremony was opened by trans singer Dana International who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998 leading the audience in singing “Oseh Shalom“.

A Stalinist, Fascist Official Ceremony

Like everyone else who went I didn’t watch the official government ceremony. It was summed up by 91 year old Dan Ziv who did watch it in a letter to the editor in Ha’aretz (April 24, 2026) as follows: “A quiz to the viewers: Did we watch a ceremony from the period of Stalin or the fascist period of Mussolini? A ceremony of a religious cult, or a ceremony in honor of the Argentinian President (all that was missing was a fiery tango!)?” Ziv was referring to the fact that right-wing Argentinian President Javier Milei, one of Netanyahu’s few remaining friends in the international community now that Orban is thankfully gone, was invited to light a torch. Ziv continued, “I watched the faces of the military representatives who were forced to participate who are not among the close favorites, and I saw faces which were frozen with expressions of shock and derision. And I say (as someone who was born in the country, is 91 years old and was an officer who fought in four wars, Oy Vavoi, really, Oy Vavoi!” (which can be translated Oh No! or God Help Us!”).

Someone actually counted the tens of times that the camera focused on “the great leader” Netanyahu during the ceremony, and on the wife of “the great leader”.  While the camera somehow missed the presence of liberal Supreme Court Chief Justice Yitzhak Amit.

I left the alternative torch lighting ceremony with a sense of inspiration and hope for the future.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)