Erekat asked to remove the flag ahead of his address in which he defended his recent condolence call to a Palestinian terrorist who murdered Israelis and his lack of success in bringing about a Palestinian state in 25 years of negotiations.

“The removal of the Israeli flag at the Ha’aretz conference exemplifies the extreme left’s loss of any remaining national pride,” Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid told his faction in the Knesset. “Imagine the outcry if an Israeli speaker had asked to remove a Palestinian flag in New York. It’s time for the Zionist Right, Left and Center in Israel to join forces against this kind of extreme behavior. We can’t go on like this.”

TGI ratings indicate that the Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz is seen by just 4.6 percent of Israelis and is about to fall behind Ma’ariv and Globes to become only the seventh most-read Hebrew daily. Lapid referred to Ha’aretz as “far Left” and said that by cooperating with organizations that work against the IDF at the conference, the newspaper had deviated from the path of past leaders of the mainstream Zionist Left.

“This kind of behavior leads us to a bi-national state,” Lapid complained. “The far Left and far Right are together leading us down that path. It is time for a clear distinction in this country between moderates and extremes. The Zionist left of Ben Gurion, of Rabin, would never have allowed something like this, just as the rational right of Begin and Jabotinsky would never have allowed attacks on the Supreme Court and the throwing of stones at IDF soldiers.”

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman blasted President Reuven Rivlin for taking part in a conference that included the European-and-Palestinian-funded organization Breaking the Silence, which pays former IDF soldiers to tell stories that make the army look bad to the world.

“I have nothing against Ha’aretz but I do against Breaking the Silence, which does more harm to Israel than Hamas and Hezbollah together with its intolerable libels,” Liberman told his faction. “It is wrong for the president to participate in an event where, at the request of the world’s worst besmircher of Israel, our flag is removed. That’s unprecedented, intolerable and unacceptable.”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin addresses attendees at the "Haaretz Q: with New Israel Fund" event at The Roosevelt Hotel in the Manhattan borough of New York City, December 13, 2015. (Israeli flag seen in the background) REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Transportation Minister Israel Katz (Likud) questioned whether Ha’aretz’s vision of peace was removing Israel’s flag from the stage. He called it “a new low in self-flagellation and shame.” Immigrant Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) tweeted that Ha’aretz was “ready to defend all rights except the right to the Israeli flag” and lamented that its publisher Amos Shocken did not even understand why the decision to remove the flag was shameful.

Shocken tweeted back to Elkin that his newspaper would obviously defend the right of everyone, including Ha’aretz, to fly Israel’s flag but there was no obligation to do so.

“Rivlin’s office asked to have the flag when he speaks,” Shocken tweeted. “Erekat’s advisers asked for no Israeli flag behind him when he speaks. Reasonable.”

Zionist Union MK Omer Bar-Lev, who presented his diplomatic plan at the conference, blasted Lapid for his criticism of the event.

“How far will Lapid stoop?” Bar-Lev tweeted. “He expected Saeb Erekat to speak near our flag so he (Lapid) could feel patriotic? What’s next? A Jewish National Fund charity box in the office of Obama?”