Tel Aviv CNN —
Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s new far-right national security minister, has ordered police to remove any Palestinian flag hoisted in public, arguing that showing such a display shows “identification with terrorism”.
“We cannot have lawbreakers waving terror flags, inciting and promoting terrorism,” he said in a statement Sunday.
Ben Gvir issued the order after Karim Younis, who had just been released from prison after serving 40 years for killing an Israeli, raised the Palestinian flag in northern Israel on Thursday.
Experts say Ben Gvir’s ban is unlikely to stand up to legal scrutiny. “It’s not illegal” to hoist the Palestinian flag, Israeli lawyer Avigdor Feldman told CNN on Monday, suggesting there was a way to overturn the order: “Someone has to go to court to get an explanation, that it is an illegal arrangement. ”
Before the Oslo Accords, the Israeli government viewed the Palestinian flag as a symbol of terrorism, but the Interim Peace Accords signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1993 effectively lifted the ban.
Feldman said the minister’s argument that unfurling the Palestinian flag was tantamount to supporting terrorism was not strong.
The Israeli police already have the power to take away flags under certain circumstances. Last year they took Palestinian flags from mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and Israeli flags from Jews on the Temple Mount, which Muslims call Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.
In a statement given to CNN on Monday, a police spokesman said: “The decision to remove a flag is based on various factors, including the type of flag, the circumstances under which it was raised and any associated display.” These factors are taken into account with regard to public safety and the potential for offenses such as supporting a terrorist group.”
For Dianna Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer from Haifa, the “ban” on the flag is not the point. She pointed out that in November 2022 the Supreme Court ruled against such bans unless there was “a high probability that the hoisting of the flag will result in a serious violation of public safety”.
“You do this [issue a flag ban] to give the police a free hand to do what they want,” she told CNN. “They know it’s not legal to do things like that – but it’s about taking enough repressive measures to keep people silent.”
Alongside the flag arrangement, Ben Gvir said he would limit the number of lawmakers allowed to visit so-called security prisoners to one Knesset member per party.
The decrees of Ben Gvir, who leads the Jewish power faction in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, come just days after his controversial visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. That morning walk provoked criticism from adversaries and allies alike and a meeting of the United Nations Security Council amid concerns about threats to the status quo of the hotspot’s holy site.