The Knesset approved on June 1 the initial reading of a bill by Knesset member Eli Cohen of the Likud that would ban organizations and institutions budgeted for or supported by the state from flying the Palestinian flag. Included among those bodies are all of the country’s public universities.

Although the bill was first proposed by the opposition, it passed with 63 votes in favor and only 16 votes opposed. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as well as the members of his Yamina party, Yisrael Beitenu and New Hope — all members of the coalition — voted together with the opposition, having been granted the right to vote their conscience. The only people to oppose the bill were the members of left-wing Meretz and Muslim Ra’am from the coalition, and the Arab Joint List from the opposition. Members of the Blue and White and Labor parties absented themselves for the vote, as did most members of Yesh Atid. Only Knesset speaker Mickey Levy of Yesh Atid was in the plenum at the time of the vote, and he voted in favor of the bill.

The decision to allow members of the coalition to vote their conscience was made May 29 during a meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Constitutional Affairs. Only two ministers voted against the proposal for free vote: Environment Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg of Meretz, and Minister of Diaspora Affairs Nachman Shai of the Labor Party. The fact that the coalition reached such an unusual decision is further evidence of the strong desire of some of the coalition’s right-wing flank to advance the aforementioned legislation.

A ruckus erupted in the Knesset plenum June 1 between Knesset member Eli Cohen of the Likud who proposed the bill and members of the Joint List who kept interrupting him. He responded by citing former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, saying, “The Arabs are the same old Arabs, just as the sea is the same old sea.” Then, addressing the Arab members of Knesset specifically, he added, “You’ll never change.”