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Activists use images of watermelons to protest police crackdown on Palestinian flags
Protest group puts posters with fruit in colors of Palestinian flag on vans in Tel Aviv, vowing to ‘not stop fighting for freedom of expression and democracy’
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
A campaign protesting against police arresting people who wave Palestinian flags in public and confiscating the banners took to the roads of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, with images of watermelons using the colors of the Palestinian flag tacked onto the shared taxis which serve the metropolis.
The project, an initiative of the Zazim – Community Action movement that promotes civil rights and anti-racism, seeks to highlight the manner in which the police have on numerous occasions in recent years arrested people for waving Palestinian flags.
Just last week a young woman was arrested during the Haifa Pride Parade for waving a Palestinian flag, although the police claimed she attacked officers after they tried to confiscate her flag.
Zazim affixed its posters, with a picture of a watermelon in the colors of the Palestinian flag and text in English stating “This is not a Palestinian flag,” to 16 shared taxi vans which are in frequent use in the Tel Aviv area.
“Our message to the government is clear: we will always find a way to circumvent any absurd ban and we will not stop fighting for freedom of expression and democracy – whether it is the pride flag or the Palestinian flag,” said Zazim director Raluca Ganea.
There is currently no law against flying the Palestinian flag, but police make arrests, claiming the flag creates a disturbance of the peace, a policy which National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai reiterated to police officers in January.
A bill to ban the flag from university campuses was recently introduced to the Knesset by a member of Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party but the government has since frozen the legislative process for the measure following an outcry from university heads and civil rights groups.
In May, the Knesset advanced a separate bill that would instate NIS 10,000 ($2,760) in administrative fines for waving terrorist organization flags. The Palestinian flag, as the national flag of the Palestinian Authority, would not be subject to the penalty.
Neither bill would apply to the West Bank, where terrorist organization and Palestinian flags are routinely on display at university events.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
