Last modified: 2004-12-29 by santiago dotor
Keywords: palestine | popular front for the liberation of palestine | pflp | arrow | star: fimbriated (red) | map: palestine |
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by Jorge Candeias | 2:3 |
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I have a photo from a newspaper some years ago that shows hanging from a wall a flag I've seen nowhere else. The article was on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a palestinian group I know very little about (I don't even know if it is still a terrorist group or if it is engaged in the peace process... or even if it still exists). The flag is hanged vertically semi-folded for space reasons, and seems to have proportions close to 2:3. It's a red flag with the PFLP symbol in the centre: a white circular device representing a stylized map of Israel and what looks like an arrow pointing to it with a dot below the arrow. I suppose this arrow-and-dot thing may have some arabic symbolism other than the obvious one.
Jorge Candeias, 15 July 1998
I checked my info about Palestine People's Liberation Front. The flag that I know is also red with larger emblem (circular arabic inscription and within the white map of Palestine and two crossed riffles; below a ribbon with inscription). The flag of the Palestine Liberation Front has an emblem similar to the one that Jorge Candeias posted. The emblem is white with red border in all the sides. The emblem is red (in the center) and has the map of Palestine, a soldier with one arm directed by the map; at right of the soldier (right of the observer) is a stilized half moon, and above the soldier is a fivepointed star. The flag posted by Jorge Candeias seems a mixture of both. Perhaps in the last years the two organizations are merged?
Jaume Ollé, 24 July 1998
The emblem on the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine does not represent anything in Arabic, it merely represents the return of the Palestinian people, most of which have moved to the East (where the arrow is pointing from).
Al Bitar (Palestinian Embassy at Bucharest), 13 February 1999
The arrow is a combination of the first Arabic letter of the word Front and the symbol of the return to the homeland. I believe, but I am not sure, that the designer was the palestinian writer-artist Ghassan Kanafani.
Gunnar Nordin, 16 October 2000
In Anders Jerichow's PLO partisaner eller terrorister, Samlerens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1978, page 36, is an illustration of PFLP's symbol, "Pilen, som trænger ind i Vestbredden og Israel, er det første skrifttegn i PFLPs navn og betyder "Fronten" (al djabha) (Kilde: PFLPs Manifest, se note 7)." In English, "The arrow, penetrating the West Bank and Israel, is the first letter in PFLP's name, meaning "The Front" (al-jabha) (source: PFLP's Manifesto, see note 7)." Note 7 is PFLP's Manifesto, Strategi för Palestinas Befrielse, Komministiska [sic] Arbetsgruppen, Sverige 1971.
Ole Andersen, 16 October 2000
According to Anders Jerichow's PLO partisaner eller terrorister, Samlerens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1978, the Palestinian People's Liberation Front was splintered in three in 1969:
Ole Andersen, 18 October 2000
A large photograph (scan here) accompanying an article in Spanish newspaper El País of 28th August 2001, p. 2, about the killing of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustapha, shows two (apparently identical) PFLP flags, one draped from a roof and the other being flown from a window. Both appear to be squarish rather than rectangular, and show the PFLP emblem in the middle, similar to that on the above images but with a much thicker outside circle and a disc instead of a star (right beneath the arrow). Unlike our GIF, however, there are the letters 'P.F.L.P.' beneath the emblem and the PFLP's name in Arab over it. They both look identical and not homemade, so I guess this is quite an 'official' version of the flag. Please note that both are intended for sinister hoist use.
Santiago Dotor, 6 September 2001