Israel’s national security minister has ordered police to ban Palestinian flags from public places in response to the latest crackdown by the country’s new hard-line government.
Itamar Ben-Gvir’s order follows a series of other punitive measures against the Palestinians since he took office late last month.
“Today I have ordered the Israel Police Force to enforce the ban on flying a PLO flag showing identification with a terrorist organization in the public sphere and to stop any incitement against the State of Israel,” Ben-Gvir announced on Twitter .
Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government has swiftly cracked down on the Palestinians in retaliation for a Palestinian push for the UN’s highest judicial body to voice its opinion on Israel’s 55-year military occupation of the West Bank.
It has withheld nearly $40 million in Palestinian tax revenue and has said it will transfer the money to victims of Palestinian militant attacks, strip Palestinian officials of VIP privileges and even break up a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing their children’s education, it claimed it was unlawfully funded by the Palestinian Authority.
Ben-Gvir, a far-right arsonist known for his anti-Arab rhetoric, drew widespread international condemnation when he visited Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site last week.
The repeated moves have the potential to escalate tensions after the deadliest year of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in nearly two decades, according to a report by Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Ben-Gvir’s latest order is not the first fight to raise the Palestinian flag.
The red, green, and white Palestinian flag carries great symbolism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last May, Israeli riot police beat pallbearers at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead while covering a military raid on the Jenin refugee camp. Police ripped Palestinian flags from people’s hands and fired stun grenades to disperse the crowd.
Israel once viewed the Palestinian flag as that of a militant group akin to Palestinian Hamas or the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah. But after Israel and the Palestinians signed a series of interim peace agreements known as the Oslo Accords, the flag was recognized as that of the Palestinian Authority, created to administer Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank. Israel refuses all official business conducted by the PA in East Jerusalem, and police have in the past broken up events they have claimed are PA-related.
Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday the action against the Palestinians was aimed at what he called an “extremely anti-Israeli” move at the UN.
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up 20% of the population, and they have had a turbulent relationship with the state since its creation in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced to flee the events surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel.
Those who stayed became citizens but were long viewed with suspicion by some Israelis because of their ties to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, who were conquered by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Palestinians aspire to all three areas for a future independent state. Netanyahu’s new government will be dominated by hardliners opposed to Palestinian statehood.