Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is right to try to keep Middle East politics away from the Leafs and Raptors

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Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) has made geopolitical news a few times this year thanks to a new policy: As of March, it bans from Scotiabank Arena “signs, symbols, images, flags, clothing, banners that may be considered vulgar, discriminatory, disrespectful, political or a tool to be used for incitement or protest.”

It was clearly designed to keep the Palestinian-Israeli conflict out of hockey and basketball games and that’s where it has proven controversial. Two Toronto lawyers initially ran afoul of the policy for wearing to a Raptors game hoodies displaying a star of David and the declaration, “bring our hostages home.” They chose to leave sooner than take them off. Last week, a video surfaced on social media of a man being turfed from a Raptors game apparently for wearing a hat with a pro-Palestinian message.

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MLSE isn’t alone in doing this. Major League Soccer banned all flags from its stadiums league-wide after the Oct. 7 attacks last year. Some, including the English Premier League, went ahead and said what they really meant: “No Israel or Palestinian flags.” Some stipulated “no flags except of........

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