Israel's Ben-Gvir tells police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces

The hardline National Security Minister said it 'cannot be that lawbreakers wave terrorist flags'

A protester waves a Palestinian flag in Tel Aviv at a demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government. AP

Israel's new far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Sunday that he had instructed police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces.

Israeli law does not outlaw Palestinian flags but police and soldiers have the right to remove them in cases where they think there is a threat to public order.

The directive from Mr Ben-Gvir, who leads an ultra-nationalist party in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government and as minister oversees the police, seems to take a hard line in requiring their removal.

It follows the release last week of a long-serving Palestinian prisoner, convicted of kidnapping and killing an Israeli soldier in 1983, who waved a Palestinian flag while receiving a hero's welcome in his village in northern Israel.

Mr Ben-Gvir said that waving the Palestinian flag was an act in support of terrorism.

“It cannot be that lawbreakers wave terrorist flags, incite and encourage terrorism, so I ordered the removal of flags supporting terrorism from the public space and to stop the incitement against Israel,” he said.

Arabs in Israel account for around a fifth of the population and most are descendants of Palestinians who remained within the newly founded state after its 1948 creation.

They have long debated their place in Israel's politics, balancing their Palestinian heritage with their Israeli citizenship, with many identifying as or with the Palestinians.

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  Palestinian protesters wave flags as Israeli troops take position during a protest against Jewish settlements in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. Reuters

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  Now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has secured a new term in office, there’s little to prevent him from annexing large parts of the West Bank as early as this summer. AP

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  An Israeli soldier stands guard during a tour made by Israeli parliament members in the Jordan Valley near the Jewish settlement of Maale Efrayim. Reuters

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  Israeli soldiers take position as Palestinian demonstrators gather during a protest against expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. AP

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  King Abdullah (r) of Transjordan on May 13, 1948 in Amman with Abed Al Rahman Azzam, the secretary general of the Arab League and Abd Al Elah Ibn Ali, the Prince Regent of Iraq, the day before the beginning of the first Arab-Israeli War. AFP

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  Palestinians surrender to Israeli soldiers in June 1967 in the occupied territory of the West Bank after Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt and Syria and seized the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in Syria as well as the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. AFP

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  A Palestinian child plays in a refugee camp in Jordan on June 23, 1967. AFP

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  PLO chairman Yasser Arafat delivers a speech to the Palestine National Council meeting to make the historic proclamation of a Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied territories and to recognize Israel in the Palace of Nations conference hall on November 12, 1988, in Algiers. AFP

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  US President Bill Clinton stands between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzahk Rabin as they shake hands for the first time on September 13, 1993 at the White House. AFP

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  Hussein Ibn Talal, King of Jordan and Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin shake hands after they exchanged the documents of the Peace Treaty at Beit Gabriel conference centre on November 10, 1994 on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. AFP

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  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during the Palestinian leadership meeting and threatened to end security coordination with Israel and the United States, saying Israeli annexation would ruin chances for peace. AFP

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  Houses in the Israeli settlement of settlement of Kedumim are seen in the foreground as part of the Palestinian city of Nablus is seen in the background (far left) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Reuters

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  Israel's controversial concrete barrier (C) separating the Jewish settlement of Neve Yaakov (foreground) in the northern part of east Jerusalem and the Palestinian area of al-Ram (background) in the occupied West Bank. AFP

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  An Israeli activist holds a banner during a protest against the US peace plan for the Middle East, in front of the US ambassador's residence in Jerusalem, on May 15, 2020, as Palestinians commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the 1948 Nakba or "catastrophe". AFP

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  A Palestinian shepherd tends to his camels on arid land considered to be in "Area C" (under Israeli security and administrative control), southeast of Yatta town in the southern West Bank district of Hebron. AFP

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  A general view of the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh, as seen from the Palestinian village of Azmout near the West Bank City of Nablus. EPA

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  The West Bank Jewish settlement of Maale Michmash. AP

In recent days, Israel has withheld millions of dollars of Palestinian tax revenue, stripped Palestinian officials of VIP privileges and broken up a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing their children’s education.

Palestinian Prime MInister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the Israeli measures, made in response to a Palestinian appeal for UN help, are “aimed at toppling the authority and pushing it to the brink financially and institutionally”.

“We consider these measures a new war against the Palestinian people, their capabilities and funds, and a war against the national authority, its survival and its achievements,” Mr Shtayyeh said during his weekly cabinet meeting.

The Israeli measures were a response to the UN General Assembly’s decision to ask the UN’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel vehemently opposed the Palestinian-backed move. Decisions by the International Court of Justice are not binding, but can carry great influence.

Mr Shtayyeh rejected Israeli claims that such moves are a counter to peace.

“We have the right to complain and tell the world we are in pain,” he said in comments published in Haaretz on Monday. “Israel wants to prevent even the most non-violent way of fighting the occupation.”