The flag of Palestine consists of four colors: black, white, green and red. It’s the four pan-Arab colorspresent on the national symbols of numerous Arab countries, whose interpretation has changed and evolved over time. In any case, the Palestinian flag derives from the banner of Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empirewhich occurred during the First World War. The current version has been attested since the 1930s, but became widespread after Six Day War of 1967 and the consequent “Palestinian rebirth”that is, the affirmation of the identity of the people of Palestine. Since then the flag has gone up to enormous diffusion both in the Palestinian territories – where it has been officially adopted as a national symbol – and among supporters around the world of the cause of Palestine in the context of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The meaning of the flag of Palestine: the pan-Arab colors
The Palestinian flag features i pan-Arab colors and is composed of three horizontal stripes of equal size and from a trianglepositioned on the side of the rod and with the vertex facing the white stripe. Exact shades and proportions are regulated by law.
The four colors of the flag of Palestine are those used by all Arabic-speaking peoples and derived, according to the most widespread interpretation, from the banners and symbols of some Islamic dynasties of the past. More specifically, white would represent the Ummayad Caliphatein power over almost the entire Islamic world from 661 to 750; the black the Abbasid Caliphateexisted from 750 to 1258; red the clan Banu Hashimto which the prophet Muhammad belonged; green, in addition to being the “traditional” color of Islam, is associated with Fatimid Caliphatewho ruled over a large area of North Africa and Asia Minor between the 10th and 12th centuries.
However, the association of colors with the dynasties of the past is the result of interpretations that cannot always be demonstrated with certainty. Before the contemporary age and the advent of mass society, political and religious symbols had a different role, e.g much less importantcompared to today. More specifically, the use of black, white, green and red as the colors of the Arab people has become established only in the twentieth century: the four colors were used together for the first time in the flag of Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empirewhich broke out in 1916 in Jordan, during the First World War, and lasted until 1918. The configuration of the flag was similar to that of the current Palestinian flag, but the color arrangement was different (white was at the bottom and green in the middle).
According to some sources, the colors had already been chosen by an Arab literary club in 1909based on the verses of a medieval poet, but the hypothesis is not proven. However, it is certain that, after the First World War, the four colors existed adopted by numerous Arab statesalthough some flags contain all of them and others only some.
The history and use of the Palestinian flag
The Palestinian flag derives from that of the Arab Revolt of 1916, but the color configuration is changed in the 1930s. In 1931 one was attested version with the green stripe at the top and the drawing of the Dome of the Rock, the famous mosque in Jerusalem, on the white stripe in the center. Perhaps it was precisely to insert a design in the center that the white stripe was moved to the centre.
The current color arrangement, with black at the top, dates back to the time of Great Arab Revolt against the British mandate and Jewish colonization, which developed between 1936 and 1939 (not to be confused with the revolt of 1916-18). The flag, however, had a peculiarity: in the red triangle there were drawn, in white, a cross and a crescentsignifying the union of Christians and Muslims.
The version without religious symbols, currently in use (with some variations in proportions), was adopted byPalestine Liberation Organization on 28 May 1964at the time of its foundation, and in the following years it spread on a large scale.
In this regard it should be remembered that the use of flags is linked to the development of people’s identity: to display the Palestinian flag, there must be a Palestinian people who consider themselves as such and “feel” their identity. In general, it could be said that Palestinians have started to feel like Palestinians in the first half of the twentieth centuryat least among the elite of society, a feeling that then spread to the entire population after the 1948 war (considered by the Palestinians the Nakba“the catastrophe”, i.e. the flight of a large part of the population from the territory that today falls within the State of Israel) and, above all, after the Six Day War of 1967. Since then the Palestinian flag has been he stated on a grand scaleeven though the State of Israel, which controlled the entire territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, prohibited its use.
In 1993, following the Oslo Accords and the transition to the administration of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) of portions of the occupied territories in 1967, the flag was able to be raised legally, and in 2005 the president of the PNA, Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) issued a decree to regulate its use. Article 3 reads:
The Palestinian flag symbolizes Palestine’s connection to the glories of its nation and to Arab and Islamic history. It is one of the attributes and manifestations of Palestinian sovereignty. No other flag may be raised to the level of the Palestinian flag, and no flag may be raised above the Palestinian flag.
Subsequent decrees defined other aspects of the use of the banner. In 2021, the NPC also determined that the flag should be raised at half-mast, as a sign of mourning, every November 2ndanniversary of Balfour Declarationwith which in 1917 the United Kingdom declared that it “looked favorably upon” the establishment of a Jewish settlement in Palestine.
