Israel Cracks Down on Palestinian Flag: New Hardline Government Takes Action

The cover image of this article is from thehindu.com.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister of Israel, has just ordered its police to prohibit flying Palestinian flags in public places. This is part of a series of actions the new right-wing administration has taken against the Palestinian Authority since taking office at the end of last month.

Ben-Gvir made the announcement on Twitter, saying that he has instructed the Israel police to suppress any PLO flag (which stands for the Palestinian Liberation Organization) that represents terrorism and to stop any forms of inciting the State of Israel.

The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, lead the government in retaliating against the Palestinian State for its approaching of the United Nations' highest judicial body to address the 55-year-old Israeli military occupation of the West Bank. The latest countermeasures include the freezing of about $40 million in Palestinian tax revenues and appointing it instead to those affected by Palestinian militant attacks; denying access to VIP privileges to Palestinian government member; and dispersing a meeting of Palestinian parents discussing the education of their children, as the government deemed it to be supported illegally by the Palestinian Authority.

Ben-Gvir, a notorious leader of the extreme-right, had also been scrutinized for his visit to the most sensitive Jerusalem holy site last week. These moves have potential to further heighten the pressure in the region which had already seen the direst year in two decades of conflict between Israel and Palestine, according to a report by B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization.

Ben-Gvir's recent command is not the first occasion of an uprising over the Palestinian flag. The green, red, and white banner symbolizes a great deal in the Israel-Palestine feud. Last May, Israel's riot police attacked the mourners at a funeral of a slain Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot while covering a military incursion in Jenin refugee camp, taking away the flags and firing tear gas at the crowd.

At one point, the Palestinian flag was regarded by Israel as the symbol of an armed group, similar to the Palestinian Hamas or the Lebanese Hezbollah. But the Oslo accords, a series of interim peace agreements between Israel and Palestine, gave legitimate status to the flag as the flag of the Palestinian Authority, a body formed to control the Gaza Strip and parts of the occupied West Bank. The government of Israel is strongly against any legal action taken by the Palestinian Authority in East Jerusalem and have on many occasions confronted events which it believed were connected to the Palestinian Authority.

On Sunday, Netanyahu addressed his cabinet and stated that the steps taken against the Palestinians were in response to their “excessive anti-Israel” step at the UN. Of the entire population of Israel, 20% are Palestinians who were either forced to flee or left of their own will during the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. While having citizenship, they have long been subjected to mistrust by many Israelis due to their relationship with the people in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem — territories which Israel occupied in the Six-Day War in 1967.

The Palestinians desire all three regions to form an independent country. Netanyahu's new government, however, is made up of politicians who are against the establishment of a Palestinian State.