The flag of Palestine consists of four colors: black, white, green and red. They are the four pan-Arab colors, present 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 the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which occurred during the First World War. The current version has been attested since the 1930s, but spread on a large scale after the Six Day War of 1967 and the subsequent “Palestinian rebirth”, i.e. the affirmation of the identity of the people of Palestine. Since then the flag has undergone enormous diffusion both in the Palestinian territories – where it was officially adopted as a national symbol – and among supporters of the cause of Palestine around the world 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 pan-Arab colors and is composed of three horizontal stripes of equal size and a triangle, positioned on the side of the pole 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 Umayyad Caliphate, in power over almost the entire Islamic world from 661 to 750; the black is the Abbasid Caliphate, which existed from 750 to 1258; red the Banu Hashim clan, to which the prophet Muhammad belonged; green, in addition to being the “traditional” color of Islam, is associated with the Fatimid caliphate, which ruled over a vast 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, and much less important, role than today. More specifically, the use of black, white, green and red as the colors of the Arab people only became established in the twentieth century: the four colors were used together for the first time in the flag of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which broke out in 1916 in Jordan, during the First World War, and lasted until 1918. The configuration of the banner was similar to that of the current Palestinian flag, but the arrangement of the colors 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 1909, based 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 were adopted by numerous Arab states, although some flags contain them all and others only by some.
The history and use of the Palestinian flag
The Palestinian flag derives from that of the 1916 Arab Revolt, but the color configuration changed in the 1930s. In 1931, a version with the green stripe at the top and the design of the Dome of the Rock, the famous mosque in Jerusalem, on the white stripe in the center was attested. 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 the 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: a cross and a crescent were drawn in white in the red triangle, signifying the union of Christians and Muslims.
The version without religious symbols, in use currently (with some variations in proportions), was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization on 28 May 1964, at the time of its foundation, and spread on a large scale in the following years.
In this regard, it should be remembered that the use of flags is linked to the development of the identity of peoples: to display the Palestinian flag, it is necessary for there to be a Palestinian people who consider themselves as such and “feel” their own identity. In general, it could be said that the Palestinians began to feel as such in the first half of the twentieth century, at least among the elite of society, a feeling that then spread to the entire population after the 1948 war (considered by the Palestinians to be 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. From that moment on the Palestinian flag established itself on a large scale, despite the State of Israel, which controlled the entire territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, banning its use.
In 1993, following the Oslo Accords and the handover of portions of the occupied territories to the administration of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1967, the flag could be raised legally, and in 2005 the president of the PNA, Mahmud 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 PNA also established that the flag should be flown at half-mast, as a sign of mourning, every November 2, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, with which in 1917 the United Kingdom declared that it “looked favorably upon” the foundation of a Jewish settlement in Palestine.
