Disinformation About the Ban on Public Display of the Ukrainian Flag in Israel

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On March 4-5th, 2023, Russian propaganda media outlets Pravda.ru, Российская газета and kherson-news.ru, as well as Georgian (1, 2, 3, 4) and Russian-language (1, 2, 3, 4) Facebook accounts published posts, according to which Public display of Ukrainian flags in Israel is prohibited by law, otherwise, the fine is 10,000 Israeli shekels. Some of the posts are accompanied by two Russian-language videos claiming that from now on in Israel, public display of Ukraine-related symbols will be punishable by a fine.

The claim that the public display of the Ukrainian flag in Israel is banned by law and that a fine of 10,000 Israeli shekels will be imposed is disinformation. The law of similar content was not adopted by the Israeli legislative body – the Knesset, and neither the bill of similar content was presented.

Russian media and Facebook accounts have disseminated disinformation about the ban of Ukrainian flags in Israel without citing any official sources. The source is also emitted in the videos published by Russian-speaking users. For example, the article by Российская газета does not name the source of information; however, as an argument that the public display of Ukrainian flags in Israel is being criticized, the article of the publication Haaretz is mentioned. In fact, the article published on Haaretz on May 14th, 2022, is related to the painting of Ukrainian and Russian flags on a wall in Jerusalem.

Information about all submitted draft laws is published on the official website of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. In the official database, there is no draft law submitted or already adopted regarding the flag and symbols of Ukraine.

On the topic of banning flags in public spaces, only one piece of information can be found on a specific bill which concerns terrorism, not Ukraine. The MP from the far-right “Religious Zionist Party” submitted a draft law aimed at banning the public display of flags and symbols of terrorist organizations, as well as photographs of terrorists. The bill calls for a fine of 10,000 shekels (almost $2,800). Based on the fact that the amount of the fine coincides, the Russian media allegedly used this initiative to spread disinformation related to the flag of Ukraine.

Local news portal newsru.co.il writes that symbols of neither Ukraine nor any other state are prohibited in Israel. The law banning Nazi symbols has not even been passed in the country, the last attempt to pass it was in 2014, but the process eventually froze. The publication also notes that in recent years there have been initiatives to ban the flags of states hostile to Israel, although these initiatives did not pass the preliminary hearing stage either.

About the Source

The Facebook users that have disseminated the disinformation about the ban on public display of the Ukrainian flag, have been amplifying disinformation and manipulative content in the past as well. For more information, see our articles:

Davit Jebashvili:

Георгий Кушиташвили:

Nana Ugulava:


The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.

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Topic: Politics
Violation: Disinformation
Country: Israel, Ukraine
Source

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