Palestinians in Gaza had a message for Israel following the settler Flag March in Jerusalem: “You raised your flag in Sinai, and you left. You raised your flag in the Gaza settlements, and you left. Soon you will leave our lands too.”
From banning the flag, to slaying Palestinians, to continuing colonization, the actions of the Israeli state are consistent with the spirit and origins of Zionist settler colonialism.
On January 9, the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, banned the display of the Palestinian flag in all public spaces.
This order is one in a recent string of escalating attacks on Palestinians by the newly formed ultra-rightwing Israeli government.
“It’s erasure and a form of criminalizing every act of Palestinian resistance and identity,” Linda Tabar, a Palestinian professor of international relations at the University of Sussex told Mondoweiss. “It’s a form of trying to negate Palestinian life,” Tabar said, “they’re suffocating us.”
As the World Cup enters its final 10 days, many can only guess at who might take home the whole thing. What can be said for certain, however, is that Palestine has won people’s hearts, and captivated the world’s attention like no other — and their team isn’t even playing.
On June 1, the Israeli Knesset passed a preliminary reading of a bill pushed by Likud Party MK member, Eli Cohen, to ban the display of “enemy flags” across Israeli state-funded institutions. Although the bill refers to “enemy flags,” the only flag that is explicitly noted is the Palestinian one. The bill must pass three additional Knesset votes before it becomes law. For Palestinians, the bill is not merely an attack on their flag, but is symbolic of a continued and systemic assault on symbols which express Palestinian identity.
A Dutch arts school permits students to hang banners in favor of Black Lives Matter and the Je Suis Charlie free-expression campaign. But when students put up a banner accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in Sheikh Jarrah, the dean demands its removal. And the school’s security also seized a watermelon banner, which celebrates the Palestinian colors.