Following a parliamentary inquiry made by MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash — Joint List), Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev ordered the police to stop confiscating Palestinian flags at protests

According to Haaretz, Bar-Lev recently told the police commissioner and other high-ranking officers in the force that the Palestinian flag, which is also the flag of the PLO, may only be confiscated during demonstrations under certain, exceptional circumstances.

A border policeman confiscates a Palestinian flag from an Israeli demonstrator in occupied East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, March 2015. (Photo: Activestills)

Jerusalem police officers have regularly been confiscating Palestinian flags from protesters on the grounds that they could lead to “a serious disturbance of the peace.” In the course of recent years, the police have also taken every opportunity to arrest protesters who waved a Palestinian flag during protests: in occupied East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood; during the Balfour Street protests against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and by ultra-Orthodox Jews in their neighborhoods in West Jerusalem.

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