Coalition Promoting Ban on Flying the ‘Palestinian’ Flag

Photo Credit: Tomer Neuberg/FLASH90

Students holding a ‘Palestinian’ flag at the entrance to Tel Aviv University, October 20, 2015.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation will discuss at its upcoming meeting on Sunday a bill prohibiting gatherings of two or more individuals who wave the flags of enemy states, including the flag of the Palestinian Authority, in institutions funded or supported by the state, Kan 11 News reported on Thursday.

The bill, submitted by MK Nissim Vaturi Likud), allows the police to disperse such gatherings and even punish protesters who wave the enemy flags, with up to a year in prison and a fine of no less than 10,000 shekels ($2,675).

Prominent among the stated-funded institutions flying the offending flags are Israeli universities, where Arab and leftist students fly the “Palestinian” flag on days such as the Nakba, commemorating the Arab flight from Israel in 1948-9.

Tel Aviv University President Professor Ariel Porat last May reacted to the government’s planned bill saying, “The Palestinian Authority is not an enemy state and is not a terrorist organization. The ban on flying the PA flag would be unconstitutional, and Tel Aviv University will not see itself obligated to act on it.”

Prof. Porat also called on government ministers and the Attorney General to prevent, in his words, “this fascist bill from becoming law.”

The “Palestinian” flag was designed based on the flag of the 1936 Arab Revolt which was organized in collaboration with Nazi Germany. It also borrows the colors of pan-Arab nationalism, which puts in question its connection to a uniquely “Palestinian” entity. In 1964, it was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a terrorist group in anyone’s book. After the Oslo Accords, in 1993, it became the flag of the Palestinian Authority.

An urban legend suggests the flag was designed by British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, who signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement that ushered British and French colonialism into the region.