January 09, 2023: Israel’s new far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has instructed police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces, calling the Palestinian national symbol an act of “terrorism.”
Israeli law does not outlaw Palestinian flags, but police and soldiers can remove them when they deem a threat to public order.
Sunday’s directive from Ben-Gvir, who heads the ultranationalist Jewish Power party in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government and, as national security minister, oversees the police, appears to signal a hardline uncompromising attitude towards Palestinian expressions of identity and free speech and pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Palestinian citizens of Israel account for about one-fifth of the population, and most are descendants of Palestinians who remained within the state after its formation in 1948, an event known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe.
The majority of the population of pre-1948 historic Palestine had been Palestinians.
In some of its first moves over the past few days, the Israeli government rescinded the travel permit of the Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki on Sunday and decided to withhold $39m in revenues from the Palestinian Authority on Friday. The decisions were part of an effort to penalize Palestinians for asking the International Court of Justice to give an opinion on the Israeli occupation, which is illegal under international law.
