Haifa Pride Police Plan to Bar Anti-Ben Gvir Shirts, Despite Police Chief's Stance

Senior officers in Israel’s Coastal District said ahead of Haifa’s Pride parade on Thursday that they would not allow participants to enter wearing shirts with anti-Ben Gvir slogans, even though Police Commissioner Daniel Levy recently apologized for a similar incident in Tel Aviv and said it was a one-time case. Recordings from the parade preparations show district officers maintaining that such shirts would be treated as incitement and kept out, and that the same would apply to certain watermelon-colored flags that could resemble Palestinian flags.

In one recording, a senior officer in the district, Brig. Gen. Boaz Samocha, said, “We will not allow shirts נגד the minister, אצלנו זה לא יעבור, don’t mix joy with joy.” In another call with a LGBTQ community representative, a police officer repeated that signs and shirts calling to harm a person because he is a minister would count as incitement, and later added that a shirt with a slogan such as “F*** Otzma Yehudit from every direction” would also be considered incitement.

The dispute comes about two weeks after police blocked a woman from entering the Tel Aviv Pride parade because she wore a shirt criticizing National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. After that incident, Levy apologized and said it had been handled as a one-off and would not happen again. The new recordings suggest that position is not being followed in practice in Haifa.

Coastal District Commander Maj. Gen. Yechiel Bohadana responded that the space commander and the other officer were wrong. He said Israel Police policy is clear, uniform, and set by the commissioner, and that the Coastal District will continue acting according to that policy, the law, and court rulings, while balancing freedom of expression with public order and public safety.