Israelis gather by Damascus Gate to Jerusalem’s Old City, as they mark Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem on Monday.Credit: Ammar Awad/ REUTERS

At first glance, this is just another repulsive, racist song. Is “Death to Arabs” any less terrible than the new song? Nevertheless, it’s hard to ignore the explicit, gleeful reference to slain children. It’s also hard to ignore the fact that these lines were chanted in a country that has already devoted several weeks to collectively denying the very existence of dead children in the Gaza Strip.

This week, an entire country, from across the political spectrum, organized to cast doubt on the fact that the army had killed nine brothers and sisters, all under the age of 12, in a single attack.

Last week, Yair Golan, the chairman of The Democrats party, sparked a storm when he said that “a sane country doesn’t kill babies as a hobby.” What he meant by this statement was clear. Nevertheless, very few people refrained from joining the circus condemning him.

The sweeping assault on Golan was the best possible proof of the fact that his words touched an exposed nerve. The public is repressing what Israel has been doing in Gaza – tens of thousands of people killed, of whom the vast majority aren’t Hamas members, including 18,000 children. Even people who are familiar with these numbers have convinced themselves that killing children is unavoidable “collateral damage.”

But then along came the tens of thousands of people who participated in the Flag March and proved the exact opposite – that the deaths of children in Gaza aren’t a regrettable side effect of the war, but a racist aspiration that numerous people voice loudly and gleefully while marching through the streets of the capital.

Israelis gather with flags by Damascus Gate to Jerusalem’s Old City, as they mark Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem on Monday.Credit: Ammar Awad/ REUTERS

“There is no school in Gaza, there are no children left” is a celebration of genocide. A sane country wouldn’t condemn the people who ask questions about killing children, but the people who celebrate it. But Israel, as we once again saw on Jerusalem Day, is losing its sanity.

Violent, racist rabbles exist in every society. But in Israel, they sit at the cabinet table and dictate policy. Consequently, it’s impossible to dismiss what happened at the Flag March as a marginal phenomenon.

The marchers’ hero was National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He wasn’t merely welcomed with the song “Death to Arabs;” that slogan is the official policy he is promoting and implementing.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir walks to visit the Damascus Gate to Jerusalem’s Old City, as Israelis mark Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem on Monday.Credit: Ammar Awad/ REUTERS

We cannot continue closing our eyes to the radicalization of Israeli society. Calls for genocide have been completely normalized. If the Israeli right once tried to deny the Nakba, today it is publicly calling for a second Nakba. The right-wing Im Tirtzu organization hung up a giant sign that read “No Nakba, no victory.”

Many of the marchers wore shirts bearing this slogan. A sane country doesn’t call for a Nakba. A sane country doesn’t celebrate the killing of children in Gaza in the presence of ministers, with municipal funding. But Israel does celebrate it. Sanity looks like a distant memory.

Haaretz Editorial