DESCRIPTION

The crux of the project lies in inverting the colours of images and symbols to create a new visual spectrum that remains opaque to conventional understanding. For example, inverting the Palestinian flag's colours will create a new, unrecognizable symbol. People can capture this altered flag through photography or videography in private and public spaces, schools, and any part of the world where it is banned or restricted. Subsequently, these images can be inverted using simple digital tools or applications, bringing the flag to its original colours. This dissonant visual experience creates unique images while overcoming censorship of the right of self-expression.

The flags will be distributed during demonstrations, with a short project description and stickers to spread over the city. Any oppressed or silenced people can have alternative ways to express themselves. It would be absurd if the police also forbade the colour-inverted flag because they would be acting against the German Constitution, which ensures that artistic expressions are protected from censorship and upholds the autonomy of artistic creation.

OBJECTIVE

• Constitutional Emphasis: Navigate and counteract institutional censorship while remaining within the boundaries of the law as a form of non-violent civil disobedience through art. 

• Aesthetic Innovation: Cultivate a novel visual specifically tailored to capture the essence of protests and demonstrations, enriching the media landscape and offering an alternative to mainstream narratives.

• Artistic Advocacy: Harness art's evocative and transformative capacity to convey messages formulated in collaboration with Palestinian activists, academics, and other key stakeholders and amplify their voices.

• Cross-Platform Dissemination: Engineer pathways for the resultant artistic images to transcend traditional political media outlets, enabling them to resonate with new and diverse audiences globally.

• Global Partnerships: Collaborate with international artists and activists to repeat and expand the project's reach, perhaps setting up parallel exhibitions or interactive installations in multiple countries.

• Media Dialogue: Engage directly with media outlets perpetuating one-sided narratives to offer the project as an alternative viewpoint. This can take the form of op-eds, interviews, or collaborative pieces.

• Artistic Expansion: Extend the concept to other forms of artistic expression like music, spoken word, or dance, where the inversion concept can be translated into auditory or physical forms.

• Archival Documentation: Create a robust archival system for preserving the generated images, videos, and associated narratives, which can serve as historical documentation beyond the classical imagery of demonstrations.

• Legal Advocacy: Partner with legal organisations to explore the project’s potential in challenging existing or proposed laws on flag display both in Israel and internationally.

• Community Building: Use the artwork as a basis for community discussions, both among Palestinians and the broader international community, about the issues of representation and voice.

• Financial support to the affected communities: Leverage the art market for funding by selling limited editions of the inverted flag images. Funds raised can be used for causes that directly support the Palestinian

civilians who are affected by the war.

BACKGROUND

Palestinian Flag: Meaning and History

The Palestinian flag is based on the Flag of the 1916 Arab Revolt, currently adopted by the State of Palestine and used to represent the Palestinian people. The common version concerning the origin of the flag entails that the colours were chosen by the Arab Nationalist ‘Literary Club’ in Istanbul in 1909, based on the words of the thirteenth-century Arab poet Safi a-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.

The flag was used by Sharif Hussein by 1917 at the latest and quickly became regarded as the flag of the Arab national movement. On October 18, 1948, the all-Palestine Government adopted the flag of the Arab Revolt, and the Arab League subsequently recognised it as the flag of Palestine. A modified version (changing the order of the stripes) has been used in Palestine at least since the late 1930s and was officially adopted as the flag of the Palestinian people by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. On November 15, 1988, the PLO adopted the flag as the flag of the State of Palestine, and then it became widely used. Currently, it is officially the flag of the State of Palestine.

Palestinian Flag: Censorship and Panning Inside Palestine/Israel

The State of Israel, since its creation in 1948 until today, has tried to ban the Palestinian flag and suppress every demonstration of Palestinian nationalism. The military regime had zero tolerance for any public display of nationalism, and waving the Palestinian flag was a serious offence that could be punished with prison time. In 1967, the State of Israel banned the Palestinian flag in occupied Palestine. Even minors as young as 10 years old were not immune and were occasionally sent to prison for waving the forbidden flag. To circumvent the ban, Palestinians began using watermelon because, when cut open, the fruit bears the national colours of Palestine. Another law in 1980 forbade artworks of "political significance" and banned those composed of its four colours. Palestinians were arrested for displaying such artworks. Artist Sliman Mansour told The National in 2021 that Israeli officials shut down an exhibition at 79 Gallery in Ramallah featuring his work and others, including Nabil Anani and Issam Badrl. 

In the First Intifada in 1987, Israel intensified its efforts to suppress the flag, sometimes to an absurd and tragic level. Israeli forces violently dispersed demonstrations of thousands in which only one or two flags were being waved. Soldiers climbed electricity poles to take flags down (or sent Palestinians to do so in their place, causing some of them to be electrocuted). On one occasion, an Arab student was arrested for embroidering a shirt with the flag; on another, someone was arrested and accused of incitement after flying a kite with the national colours. After soldiers found a dress in the national colours in a Palestinian woman’s home, they forced her to wear it — and then arrested her for doing so. 

Most Israeli mainstream media outlets delegitimised the flag, often by referring to it as the “PLO flag” — a term based on the claim that it was not the flag of the Palestinian nation but only that of the organisation. Though the ban was lifted after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, the Palestinian flags are nonetheless routinely confiscated by the Israeli police. Therefore, the use of the watermelon as a symbol resurged in 2021, following an Israeli court ruling that Palestinian families based in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem would be evicted from their homes to make way for settlers.

In 2022, a new bill has come in place to prohibit the waving of Palestinian flags in Israeli universities. According to the proposed law, a student who flies a “flag of an enemy state, a terrorist organisation or the Palestinian Authority” will be suspended by the educational institution “for a period not less than 30 days,” and should they commit a repeat offence, they will be expelled permanently and denied the right to receive an academic degree in Israel or to have an academic degree recognised outside of Israel for five years. In January 2023, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir announced the intention of the Israeli Government to outlaw the flag. 

In June, Zazim, an Arab-Israeli community organisation working together for democracy, equality, and joint, active civic engagement, launched a campaign to protest against the ensuing arrests and confiscation of flags, where the images of watermelons appeared again on 16 taxis operating in Tel Aviv, with the accompanying text reading, “This is not a Palestinian flag.” Zazim director Raluca Ganea wrote, “Our message to the government is clear: we will always find a way to circumvent any absurd ban, and we will not stop fighting for freedom of expression and democracy.” 

Currently, 11 bills are pending approval in the Knesset to ban the Palestinian flag in various forms.

Palestinian Flag and Pro-Palestinian Protests: Criminalisation, Oppression, Censorship and Banning Outside Palestine/Israel

National and local governments in major European countries have blocked pro-Palestinian protests and detained hundreds of protesters, citing an overriding interest in public order and safety. Instances of police brutality against demonstrators have been reported where riot police were deployed for consecutive days during public outrage over Israel's actions in Gaza. Additionally, events that feature groups critical of the Israeli state have been cancelled, such as the Frankfurt Book Fair's event honouring Palestinian writer Adania Shibli for her book "A Minor Detail".

Currently, Germany is witnessing a clampdown and criminalisation of Palestinians and those wishing to voice opposition to Israel's government actions. Demonstrators have reported racial profiling by police, with targeted arrests and detainment of individuals who appear to be non-white or of Palestinian descent. Even before October 7 of this year, Berlin authorities had already banned events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, the "Palestinian catastrophe," as well as a vigil organised by Jüdische Stimme in memory of Al Jazeera's journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

Also, the efforts to ban the Palestinian flag expanded beyond Israel's borders. For instance, during the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, the Palestinian flag was prohibited from being displayed. This year, in the UK, Home Secretary Suella Braverman stated that waving the Palestinian flag, in certain contexts, may glorify terrorism and advised that displaying the Palestinian flag could be considered a criminal offence against the Jewish community. Meanwhile, Berlin has officially sanctioned the showing of Palestinian flags, pro-Palestinian speech, and even the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf in schools. 

For European countries, specifically Germany, to silence this discourse is deeply troubling, both constitutionally and democratically. Such actions indicate a regression to behaviours that the nation has strenuously endeavoured to put behind it.