Amnesty International, that most biased and suspect of NGOs, has conducted a survey that has found that most Israelis’ reaction to seeing the Palestinian flag is fear. A report on these vexillological vexations is here: “Amnesty says most Israelis fear seeing Palestine flag,” Middle East Monitor, August 3, 2022:
A new survey conducted by Amnesty International has revealed that most Israelis fear the sight of the Palestine flag, Quds Press has reported. According to Amnesty’s Programme Director, Yariv Mohar, though, there would have been no chance to ask a question about the Palestine flag and get a “simple answer”.
That flag represents a political entity that, if and when it comes into being as the state of Palestine, will not be a peaceful neighbor of Israel, but instead will work constantly to weaken the Jewish state and, ultimately, to replace it altogether by the “state of Palestine,” which will extend, the Arabs have made clear, “from the river to the sea.” Hamas is intent on engaging in terrorism to weaken the Israelis and undermine their state, subjecting the Jewish state to constant attack, both through terrorism and hoping to be joined by Arab armies in a gang-up like that of 1948. The Palestinian Authority has a different approach. It favors proceeding slowly, relying on diplomatic pressure to force Israel to accept being squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, that Abba Eban described as “the lines of Auschwitz,” with a nine-mile wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea, Once that has been achieved, the PA hopes that, together with other Arabs, it will be able do what the Arabs failed to do in 1948, 1967, and 1973 – that is, to destroy the state of Israel. The goal of both Hamas and the PA is the same – the disappearance of the Jewish state and its replacement by “Palestine.” They differ only on timing and tactics.
What, after all, does that Palestinian flag signify? It signifies this: a complete rejection of the Jewish state. Those Israeli Arabs who wave it so aggressively in public spaces are identifying with an enemy that wants Israel destroyed. The waving of this flag is akin to the members of the German-American Bund, who at their infamous 1941 rally in Madison Square Garden displayed and waved the swastika flag of Nazi Germany; that flag was banned from public display as soon as America declared war on Nazi Germany.
The survey conducted by the rights group showed that half of the Palestinians in Israel believe that raising the flag of Palestine is part of their national identity. Indeed, 35 per cent of respondents said that raising the flag is a protest against discrimination in the occupation state.
Predictably, 52 per cent of Jews in Israel believe that raising the Palestinian flag symbolises that there is no recognition of Israel, while 14.5 per cent believe that it symbolises support for resistance against the state.
That’s just the point: what is the “national identity” of Israeli Arabs? Those who wave the flag of Palestine in public are declaring themselves to be loyal not to Israel, but to the state that wishes to replace Israel. It’s hardly an affront if Israeli Jews have distaste for the aggressive semaphoring of disloyalty to the Jewish state by Israeli Arabs.
No, Israelis are not against recognizing the Israeli Arab identity, as Amnesty International wants us to believe. They are against those Israeli Arabs who live in Israel, accept its security, enjoy its freedoms, share in its prosperity, and receive so many benefits, as citizens of Israel, that would be unattainable in any Arab polity. Those Arabs who wave the Palestinian flag are identifying with, and supporting, those who work to undermine the Jewish state. That’s what the vexillological outrage in Israel is all about.
Conversely, the survey found that 95.3 per cent of Israeli Jews believe that raising the flag of Israel is an expression of their national identity; 55.6 per cent of the Palestinians think the same about Israeli Jews who raise the national flag….
While 72.3 per cent of Israeli Jews see the Palestine flag as a threat to Jews, only 18.5 per cent of Palestinians in Israel believe that raising the Palestine flag is a threat to Israeli Jews.
The hopes for peace among Israeli Jews have steadily diminished because of the decades of terrorism unleashed by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP. Those hopes for peace have been further undermined by the so-called “moderate” Palestinian Authority, whose president, Mahmoud Abbas, praises terrorist attacks, and with his “Pay-For-Slay” program, both rewards past, and incentivizes future, acts of terror. The P.A. may not directly engage in terrorism itself, unlike Hamas, but it does everything it can to promote terrorism, including naming streets, squares, and sports competitions after terrorists. On Palestinian television, shows for children present sweet-faced preschoolers making stabbing motions with their rubber knives, as they lisp their desire to “kill Jews.” All of those terror attacks, in which thousands of Israelis have been killed or wounded, explain the loss of Israeli hopes for peace. Can anyone, other than those carrying water for the Palestinians, blame them?
Israelis have been badly shaken by the Arab rioters who attacked Jews in such mixed cities as Lod and Ramle in May 2021 and cheered on Hamas in Gaza, and the rockets that the terror group launched into Israel. They now realize that there is indeed a fifth column inside their country, whose precise extent is unknown, and many want to ban the Palestinian flag as an outward and visible sign of disloyalty to Israel and of loyalty to a polity that, were it to materialize, would try to replace the Jewish state. That flag is aggressively waved at public events, as an act of triumphalism. To wave the Palestinian flag inside Israel is akin to uttering the Islamic supremacist war cry “Allahu akbar,” which means “our [Muslim] god is greater than yours.” It is perfectly understandable that Israeli Jews would wish to ban that display of disloyalty. Israeli Jews want overwhelmingly to prevent such flag-waving. Is that so hard for Amnesty International to understand?
Eve2 says
The actual feeling is disgust & revulsion for the flag & for the people who call this disgusting flag their own!
mortimer says
CLUE: THE PALLY FLAG IS THE FLAG OF JORDAN MISSING ONE STAR
-“Palestine and Jordan are one…” said King Abdullah in 1948.
-“The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan,” said King Hussein of Jordan, in 1981.
-“Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is only one land, with one history and one and the same fate,” Prince Hassan of the Jordanian National Assembly was quoted as saying on February 2, 1970.
– Abdul Hamid Sharif, Prime Minister of Jordan declared, in 1980, “The Palestinians and Jordanians do not belong to different nationalities. They hold the same Jordanian passports, are Arabs and have the same Jordanian culture.”
-“There should be a kind of linkage because Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people,”according to Farouk Kaddoumi, then head of the PLO Political Department, who gave the statement to Newsweek on March 14, 1977.
-Distinguished Arab-American Princeton University historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee, “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history.”
-According to Arab-American columnist Joseph Farah, “Palestine has never existed – before or since – as an autonomous entity. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland. There was no language known as Palestinian. There was no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a Palestine governed by the Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc.”
* The current queen of Jordan is an Arab ‘Palestinian’.
* Approximately half of Jordan’s prime ministers since 1950 have been Arab ‘Palestinians’.
* More than 2/3 of the Jordanian people are Arab ‘Palestinians’.
* The majority of citizens residing in the capital of Amman are Arab ‘Palestinians’.
* Arab ‘Palestinians’ constitute not less than one half of the members of the armed forces, according to the late King Hussein, as broadcast on Amman Radio February 3, 1973.
* The majority of other security forces are Arab ‘Palestinians’.
* Jordan occupies 77% of the original Palestine Mandate (originally promised to the Jewish people). The population density of Jordan is less than 61 people per square mile leaving lots of room to absorb many more of their brethren and cousins.
BexarKat says
For the Palestinians to raise a Palestinian flag in their intended state indeed has many purposes; most of which were indicated in this article. However, when Israeli Jews raise the Palestinian flag, it is symbolic of pandering and begging for peace that the Palestinians intend to bring at sword point.
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/06/palestinian-flag-raises-controversy-israeli-universities
https://www.972mag.com/why-arabs-brought-palestinian-flags-to-central-tel-aviv/
James Lincoln says
So, according to the feature article:
“Amnesty International, that most biased and suspect of NGOs, has conducted a survey that has found that most Israelis’ reaction to seeing the Palestinian flag is fear.”
Interestingly, Amnesty International said nothing about this being a “phobia”.
gravenimage says
In Israel, Vexillological Vexations
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Just reading this headline I knew this was a Hugh Fitzgerald story. 🙂
As for the “Palestinian” flag instilling fear in Israelis, why would it not? Both Fatah and Hamas have the full destruction of Israel in their charters. This flag is all about the violent eradication of civilized Israel.