Police on Thursday detained a resident of the central city of Modiin for wearing a kippa displaying a Palestinian flag alongside an Israeli one, and later cut up the religious head covering to remove the symbol.
Alex Sinclair, an educator and lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, described in a Facebook post how he was sitting in a cafe in his hometown wearing the kippa as he has in the past, when “a religious man came over to me with an angry face” and accused him of violating the law.
When Sinclair insisted there was nothing illegal about sporting a Palestinian flag, he threatened to call the police.
“For the past twenty years, almost, I’ve worn a kippah that has both the Israeli flag and the Palestinian flag on it. The reasons behind the kippah are long and complex and related to the messy ambivalence of my Jewish-Zionist identity,” Sinclair wrote.
“But then, five minutes later, the police arrive. Two officers, and they immediately tell me that my kippah is against the law and that they are going to confiscate it.”
Displaying a Palestinian flag is not illegal, but police regularly confiscate flags at protests, claiming they disturb the peace. “Now it was being banned from my head, my kippah, my religious identity itself,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair was then detained and taken to the local police station after refusing to have it confiscated.
“After about 20 long minutes they opened the cell, and told me to follow them to the front of the police station. There, at the front door, they shoved my backpack into my arms and told me to go – without my kippah,” he wrote.
After demanding it be returned, an officer returned the head covering with the Palestinian flag cut out.
“She’d taken my possession, a religious ritual object, something that is very dear to my heart, and destroyed it.”
Sinclair, who filed a complaint with the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI), said he also requested the police compensate him and provide “a written commitment that I can walk around Modiin with it free from harassment. But I’m not holding my breath.”
Police, in a response, confirmed the incident, saying that they had responded to a report of a man wearing a Palestinian flag and had detained him.
“After an investigation, he was released,” police said in a statement, adding that since a complaint had been filed with DIPI, they could not further comment on the case.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has led a push to outlaw flying the Palestinian flag and in 2023 tried to order police to enforce a blanket ban on displaying the Palestinian flag.
However, police are said to have disregarded that directive and to have told him there was no legal basis to confiscate the flags as long as no incitement was taking place.
Police have wide leeway to take action to maintain public order and regularly remove them from public spaces and confiscate flags and images of Palestinian flags from those displaying them.
In March, a woman was arrested for a Facebook post in 2016 where she was seen posing with her two eldest children while holding a Palestinian flag.
Source:
www.timesofisrael.com
