The Knesset approved Wednesday the preliminary reading of a bill that would stiffen the penalty for damaging the Israeli flag. The bill triples the maximum imprisonment of flag burners from one year to three years. The original version would also have allowed the rescinding of government allowances and free health-care for citizens who are convicted of burning the flag (the vote on this section was postponed).

The Israeli law books already contain a statute, excessive in itself, that sets a one-year prison sentence for anyone convicted of abusing the flag. This section, not to mention the more severe penalty in the new bill, is supposed to “take care” of protests like the one by artist Natali Cohen Vaxberg, who was indicted after releasing a video in which she is seen defecating on the flags of various countries, among them the Israeli flag.

Open gallery view Natali Cohen Vaxberg in court, November 2014. Credit: Ofer Vaknin

The proposal of MK Nava Boker (Likud) joins a long line of embarrassing bills by coalition legislators, who in the absence of a real policy are feverishly preoccupied with nationalist cult rituals. Another such example is MK Oren Hazan’s bill (which was approved in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation) to include in all official documents the name “State of Israel” rather than “Israel.”

Boker’s bill embodies a binary, dangerous and anti-democratic view of the reality of the tapestry of society in Israel. The original version of the bill, which included the section on rescinding allowances, stated that “because of the multiplicity of cases of burning the Israeli flag during the riots and disturbances of order that took place across Israel recently, it is proposed that every Israeli citizen who burns the Israeli flag, thereby attesting that he does not desire to be a citizen of the state, will be deprived of various benefits which the state of Israel provides its citizens, such as National Insurance Institute payments, subsidy of medical treatments, subsidy and scholarships for higher education et al.”

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1989 in the wake of the conviction of a Texas resident for flag burning that freedom of expression also protects flag burning, and that the laws of states that punish flag burners contravene this freedom. The original version of the bill not only harms rights like freedom of expression, but also includes an extremely narrow view of citizenship, defining it as how one treats the flag.

Israeli society is comprised of a substantial population that does not see the flag as a holy vessel, from Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews to people who prefer quieter and deeper expressions of their connection to their country. There should be no link between citizenship and the rights that accompany it, based on an object. It would be better if the Israeli government would do its job and find solutions to security and economic problems that concern Israeli citizens, instead of measuring their attitude toward the flag.