'Enough with the Dove!'

In a memo distributed by the group, it asks military commanders, educators and parents to make sure that displays include the Star of David, the Menorah symbol, the blue-and-white colors of the Israeli flag - but not the ubiquitous dove with the olive branch in its beak.

 

"The peace dove," they note, "is not an official state symbol, just as an orange ribbon is not an official state symbol."

 

The orange ribbon was adopted as a symbol of the movement to forestall the Disengagement - as the 2005 retreat from Gaza and eviction of Gaza's Jews were labeled.

 

"The orange ribbon and the peace dove are symbols of the Right and the pro-Palestinian Left, respectively, and just as no school or military base would think of adding an orange ribbon to official study material or to official ceremonies, the peace dove should also be left out," Mattot Arim stated.

 

The common use of the peace dove in schools and army bases "is not necessarily innocent and creates positive associations, in the minds of children or of the IDF's fighters, toward unceasing concessions to the Palestinians..."

 

Mattor Arim asks soldiers, parents and students to be on the lookout for improper use of the dove and to report such use to the proper channels in the IDF or to the Minister of Education at [email protected], preferably with a copy to [email protected].

 

Why the Dove, Anyways?
Interestingly, while the image of the dove bearing the olive branch is taken from the Bible, the idea that it symbolizes peace does not appear to be a Jewish one.

 

In the story of the Flood in the book of Bereshit (Genesis), Noah released the dove from the ark and it came back with an olive branch twig in its beak, showing him that the flood had begun to subside and expose dry land. 

 

Rav Shlomo Aviner has written that there is no basis in Judaism for the commonly-held notion that Noah's dove symbolizes peace. "As we all know, olive branches are not food for birds," he explains. Why, then, did the dove take the olive in its beak? Rav Aviner qutes the Talmudic Sages who explained that the dove's thoughts were: "Let my food be as bitter as an olive at the hands of G-d, and not sweet as honey by the hands of flesh and blood." (Eruvin 18 2). In other words: "In Noah's ark they supply me with good food, but I love freedom, liberty, independence, and for this I am willing to live a difficult life."

 

Rav Aviner further explains: