Flag of Palestine

The flag of Palestine (علم فلسطين ) is a tricolour of three equal horizontal stripes—black, white, and green from top to bottom—overlaid by a red triangle issuing from the hoist. It displays the pan-Arab colours, which were first combined in the current style during the 1916 Arab Revolt, and represents the Palestinian people and the State of Palestine.

Used since the 1920s, the Palestinian flag's overall design is almost identical to the flag of the Arab Revolt, with the pan-Arab colours representing four historical Arab dynasties. It was flown during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and has also been used extensively in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, especially after it was officially adopted as the Palestinian people's flag when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964. Since 2015, the State of Palestine has observed a Flag Day every 30 September. Since 2021, the Palestinian flag has been lowered to half-mast every 2 November to lament the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which was issued by the United Kingdom, supporting a "national home for the Jewish people" in what was then Ottoman Palestine.

During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, where it then outlawed the Palestinian flag, which remained until the early 1990s, when Israel and the PLO signed the Oslo Accords. In practice, however, the flag is still routinely confiscated by Israeli authorities throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. In 2023, Amnesty International released a report condemning new Israeli government restrictions on displays of the Palestinian flag as "an attempt to legitimize racism" by suppressing "a symbol of unity and resistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation" in the Palestinian territories. The watermelon symbol rose to defy Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian flag between 1967 and 1993, and continues to be used today as an expression of Palestinian nationalism worldwide.

Origin




The flag used by the Arab Palestinian nationalists in the first half of the 20th century is the flag of the 1916 Arab Revolt. The origins of the flag are the subject of dispute and mythology. In one version, the colours were chosen by the Arab nationalist 'Literary Club' in Istanbul in 1909, based on the words of the 13th-century Arab poet Safi al-Din al-Hili:

Ask the high rising spears, of our aspirations Bring witness the swords, did we lose hope We are a band, honor halts our souls Of beginning with harm, those who won't harm us White are our deeds, black are our battles, Green are our fields, red are our swords.

Another version credits the Young Arab Society, which was formed in Paris in 1911. Yet another version is that the flag was designed by Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office. Whatever the correct story, the flag was used by Sharif Hussein by 1917 at the latest and quickly became regarded as the flag of the Arab national movement in the Mashriq.



A modified version (changing the order of stripes) has been used in Palestine at least since the early 1920s The Palestinian flag featured during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, being held in most villages and the rural areas which were declared as "liberated zones". On 18 October 1948, the flag of the Arab Revolt was adopted by the All-Palestine Government, and was recognised subsequently by the Arab League as the flag of Palestine. The flag was officially adopted as the flag of the Palestinian people by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. On 1 December of the same year, the Executive Committee of the Liberation Organization established a special system for the flag specifying its standards and dimensions, and the black and green colors replaced each other. On 15 November 1988, the PLO adopted the flag as the flag of the State of Palestine.

On the ground the flag became widely used since the Oslo Agreements, with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993. Today the flag is flown widely by Palestinians and their supporters.

Suppression by Israel (1967–1993)
Immediately following the Six-Day War in 1967, the State of Israel outlawed the public display of the Palestinian flag in the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. A 1980 law forbidding artwork of "political significance" banned artwork composed of its four colours, and Palestinians were frequently arrested for displaying such artwork.

The ban was lifted after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993. Since 2014, Israeli police have had the authority to confiscate a flag if it is used in support of terrorism or disrupts public order. Israeli police has been routinely confiscating flags. In January 2023, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir announced he had instructed the police to ban the flag's showcasing in public spaces. Israel's restriction on the Palestinian flag were criticized by Amnesty International as an attempt to legitimize racism, adding that the Palestinian flag has been used for the past decades as "a symbol of unity and resistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation".

Watermelon symbol
The use of the watermelon as a Palestinian symbol has come as a response to Israel's confiscation of Palestinian flags.

Other pan-Arab flags
The flag is similar to that of Syria's Ba'ath Party, which uses the same shapes and colours but a 2:3 ratio as opposed to Palestine's 1:2, as well as the short-lived Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan (which had an equilateral triangle at the hoist). It is also similar to the Flag of Sudan, the Flag of Jordan, and to the Flag of Western Sahara, all of which draw their inspiration from the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule (1916–1918). The flag of the Arab Revolt had the same graphic form, but the colours were arranged differently (white on the bottom, rather than in the middle).