“Your kippah is against the law.” The sentence was spoken this week in a café in Modiin. Alex Sinclair, a lecturer who had worn the same kippah for twenty years, was working on his laptop when a stranger approached him, angry, and delivered this line. The stranger called the police. Within the hour, Sinclair had been detained, searched, locked in a cell, and released without it. The kippah was returned to him later, with part of it cut away.

The kippah was embroidered with two flags, Israeli and Palestinian. When it returned to his hand, the Palestinian flag was gone. The Israeli flag, beside it, was left in place.

There is, of course, no such law. Displaying the Palestinian flag in Israel is not a criminal offense. The prohibitions that exist concern incitement or support for terrorist organizations, and they depend on context. None were invoked. What took place was the use of legal language in the absence of legal ground, authority wearing the costume of law.

And before any of this – before the question of law, before the question of the flag – a man was sitting in a café, working. He was doing nothing at all. What was taken from him first was the ordinary freedom to occupy a public space without being interrupted by the state.

But........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)