Israeli nationalists wage battle against Palestinian flag

It's not a bomb or a gun or a rocket. The latest threat identified by Israel is the Palestinian flag.

Recent weeks have seen a furor by nationalists over the waving of the red, white, green and black flag by Palestinians in Israel.

Yet the fracas over the flag tells a broader story about how much hopes for peace with the Palestinians have diminished and about the stature of the fifth of Israelis who are Palestinian. They for long have been viewed as a fifth column because of their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

Palestinian citizens of Israel see the campaign against the flag as another affront to their national identity and their rights as a minority in the majority Jewish state.

"The Palestinian flag reminds Israelis that there is another nation here and some people don't want to see another nation here," said Jafar Farah, who heads Mossawa, an advocacy group promoting greater rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

In recent weeks, Israeli authorities have gone out of their way to challenge the hoisting of the Palestinian flag. Police at a funeral in east Jerusalem last month for the well-known Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh snatched Palestinian flags from mourners, reportedly following an order from a district police chief to make sure the Palestinian colors don't fly at the politically-charged event.

Two Israeli universities were slammed by nationalists for allowing Palestinian flags to be waved at campus events. Israel Katz, a senior opposition lawmaker, urged flag-waving Palestinian-Israeli students to remember the war leading to Israel's establishment in 1948, saying Jews "know how to protect themselves and the concept of the Jewish state."

A group promoting...