Here we have a country with pride. Now it is illegal to wave an Israeli flag. Umm al-Fahm is not in the middle of the Palestinian territories. It is a city in Israel. .
If you read the article, he wasn't arrested for waving an Israeli flag, he was detained while waving a flag. Big difference.
Detaining does not mean you are doing anything wrong, and charges are not necessarily filed. Also, they did not take him into custody because he was waving a flag per se, but because of two somewhat related reasons:
1) For his own safety, he was taken into custody. Waving an Israeli flag in Umm al-Fahm is no more illegal in Israel than it is to wear an "White Pride" T-shirt in Harlem, but it may get you killed, and the police, for all the flack they get, are around to protect citizens.
2) His intentions were suspect, and not unreasonably. A "Jewish Pride" parade, which was likely to attract, among others, some fanatical elements to Umm al-Fahm, was cancelled, so the police had reason to believe he could have been looking for trouble (and I can't find the fault in that logic). In addition, there is absolutely no apparent reason to stand at the entrance of a town and wave a flag, which probably further raised their suspicions.
His motivations were quite possibly the same motivations of the original parade, to draw attention to the double standards in this country, and the differential treatment by the courts.
BTW, I still don't know who this was,...none of my neighbors, though, I far as I can tell.
If you read the article, he wasn't arrested for waving an Israeli flag, he was detained while waving a flag. Big difference.
ReplyDeleteDetaining does not mean you are doing anything wrong, and charges are not necessarily filed. Also, they did not take him into custody because he was waving a flag per se, but because of two somewhat related reasons:
1) For his own safety, he was taken into custody. Waving an Israeli flag in Umm al-Fahm is no more illegal in Israel than it is to wear an "White Pride" T-shirt in Harlem, but it may get you killed, and the police, for all the flack they get, are around to protect citizens.
2) His intentions were suspect, and not unreasonably. A "Jewish Pride" parade, which was likely to attract, among others, some fanatical elements to Umm al-Fahm, was cancelled, so the police had reason to believe he could have been looking for trouble (and I can't find the fault in that logic). In addition, there is absolutely no apparent reason to stand at the entrance of a town and wave a flag, which probably further raised their suspicions.
B"H
ReplyDeleteHis motivations were quite possibly the same motivations of the original parade, to draw attention to the double standards in this country, and the differential treatment by the courts.
BTW, I still don't know who this was,...none of my neighbors, though, I far as I can tell.