This is Palestine, in Your Inbox, dishing out Palestine tidbits tastier than your grandma's Mansaf :-)

What did the Palestinian 🇵🇸 flag 🇵🇸 look like before 1964?

The wikipedia page, Flag of Palestine, and the Palestinian News Agency, Wafa, indicate it was first adopted by the PLO in 1964 (and by the All Palestine Government in 1948).

BUT…..

I was browsing through the contents of the Palestinian Museum Digital Archive & stumbled across this 1931 photo:

In 1931, Palestinians hosted the World Islamic Congress in Jerusalem and presented a Palestinian Flag to Shaukat Ali, the Indian representative.

The only difference between the flag they presented in 1931 and the Palestinian flag today (reminder: 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸) is an image of the Dome of the Rock at the center.

Given that Palestinian leaders presented this flag to Muslim leaders at the World Islamic Conference, it seems plausible the Dome of the Rock was an add-on to the flag, and thus, that today’s Palestinian flag dates to at least 1931. I also just made that up. Someone should do more research 😀.

Of course, we know Palestinians were debating two years earlier in 1929 what ought to go on the flag (a point which sort of supports my half-baked theory that the basic contours were agreed upon and the only question was how to Palestinianize it. Proposals were submitted from Nazareth, Jerusalem , Nablus, Haifa and elsewhere. Here are a few of them:

The first question I had when I saw these beautiful hand-drawn flags was — where did they come from?

These hand-drawn flags are held under lock and key by — wait for it — the Israeli State Archives. Israeli sociologist Tamir Sorek first uncovered them in a 2004 paper, while the high resolution color photos appear to have been shared by a Reddit user named “Israeli Local.” Alas, the State of Israel has, in addition to confiscating many other Palestinian things, has also confiscated Palestine’s cultural heritage.

And what about the 🇵🇸 Palestinian flag 🇵🇸 Before 1929?

Khayrīyah Qāsimīyah published a book about the history of the Palestinian Flag (in Arabic) in 1970, but he breezes through the 1920s like a knife gliding through a stick of warm butter. His only source appears to be the recollections of Akram Zu’aytir, Muhammad ‘Izzat Darwazah and Amil Ghuriat. Apparently, the debate in the 1920a revolved around whether the Palestinians ought to embrace the general Arab flag or adopt a distinct flag. Story checks out given the flags we saw above!

Best Palestine article of the Week

If you only read a 1 news article on Palestine this week, let it be this piece by Oren Ziv titled, ‘It’s like 1948’: Israel cleanses vast West Bank region of nearly all Palestinians.”

The article is a comprehensive piece on ongoing Israeli efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Area C of the occupied West Bank. Here is the short summary:

Ziv is an Israeli activist and photo journalist who has spent 2+ decades documenting Israeli violence perpetrated against the Palestinians. By the article’s end, one is left with impression that so many thousands of Palestinians are re-living 1948 all over again.

But we cannot end on that. So……

Best Palestine comedy of the Week

The 1001 Laughs Palestine Comedy Festival just wrapped up, an annual comedy festival in Palestine organized by Amer Zahr. Here, we’ve got a clip from Suhayl Essa, a South African comic cracking some jokes about Palestinians: Edgy, sure. Was I laughing? guilty.

Cheers,

-Zach