Activists use watermelons to protest police crackdown on Palestinian flags

Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

A taxi adorned with a watermelon in the colors of the Palestinian flag to protest a police crackdown on flying the banner, in Tel Aviv on June 21, 2023 (Courtesy: Zazim - Community Action)
A taxi adorned with a watermelon in the colors of the Palestinian flag to protest a police crackdown on flying the banner, in Tel Aviv on June 21, 2023 (Courtesy: Zazim - Community Action)

A campaign protesting against a police policy to arrest people who wave Palestinian flags in public and confiscation the flags takes to the roads of Tel Aviv, 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.

The Zazim group affixed its posters, with a picture of a watermelon in the colors of the Palestinian flag and stating in English “This is not a Palestinian flag” to 16 shared taxi vans which are in frequent use in the Tel Aviv area.

There is currently no law against flying the Palestinian flag, but the police make arrests on that basis 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 since froze the legislative process for the measure following an outcry from university heads and civil rights groups.

“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,” says Zazim director Raluca Ganea.

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