Public Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir ordered police to tear Palestinian flags from any public position starting Sunday, even though officials were reportedly baffled by the new policy, which appeared to be an ad hoc reaction to a released convicted terrorist waving a Palestinian flag last week.
Ben Gvir, head of the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, said in a statement from his workplace that he had ordered police commissioner Kobi Shabtai to put the new policy into effect, a symbolic move that could lead to friction between police and Israeli Arabs who identify with the Palestinian national struggle.
“Minister Ben Gvir sent an order to the police station stating that all police officers of any rank may, as part of police work, wave the flags of the Palestinian Authority,” he said.
It is not illegal to fly Palestinian flags, but the police have ample leeway to act in accordance with law and order. being rejected.
Ben Gvir said his order “is based on the fact that the demonstration of a [Palestinian] flag is a form of terror,” referring to the flag as a symbol of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The announcement came hours after the right-wing minister summoned Shabtai to cover up the fact that open events were held in the Arab city of Ara to celebrate the return of a local man who served 40 years in prison for terrorism. A soldier at the 1980. Au celebration, released convict Karim Younis, waved a Palestinian flag.
Ben Gvir had ordered the police to save him from public celebrations in ‘Ara, subsidized through a legal opinion presenting such celebrations as terrorism.
“It is highly unlikely that violators will wave terrorist flags, incite and assist terrorism and therefore I have ordered flags that aid terrorism to be removed from public space,” Ben Gvir said on Sunday. “Identifying with a terrorist and injuring IDF foot soldiers is not protected by freedom of speech.
It is unclear whether the police will execute the order, the new point of contention between Ben Gvir and Shabtai. Police turned to the government’s legal advisers for a recommendation on how, if appropriate, to execute the order, Channel Thirteenth reported, with serious and demanding legal situations. expected.
Ben Gvir has called for a law granting him an unprecedented police policy, which is usually set through the commissioner.
Brandon, of the extreme right, has spoken out in the afterlife in favor of capital punishment for terrorism crimes. He criticized police efforts that oppose Jewish nationalists and what he considers too comfortable a technique for non-Jewish suspects.
In May, Israeli police were convicted via the foreign network for their brutal tactics at a funeral procession for al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, adding to tearing down Palestinian flags of mourners. Abu Akleh was killed in Nablus so investigators decided it was a failed Israeli bullet.
There are no transparent regulations on when Palestinian flags are allowed to fly and the attorney general’s orders are to remove them when “there is a fear that waving the flag has a high probability of seriously disrupting life. “public peace,” according to a May report in Haaretz.
In 2021, Ben Gvir’s predecessor, Omer Barlev, asked the police commissioner to restrict the confiscation of flags at public events.
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