The meaning of a flag.

The Israeli flag has two blue stripes on white background and a blue “star of David” in the middle. It has been inspired by the prayer shawl worn while praying during certain services and by the “Zionist’ symbol and therefore can easily be identified with both by religious and secular Jews.
It was first displayed in Rishon le Zion ( an Israeli town) in 1885 and was used in the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. The flag was adopted officially on October 28, 1948.
It is very much a “flag of a people” and Jews all over the world can feel comfortable with it.
In my home we always have an Israeli flag on display.
It is not a neutral flag, however. As the “national banner’ of the state of Israel it represents an “identity problem” for whoever is not Jewish but still “Israeli”.

The Palestinian flag was originally designed for the Arab riot against the Ottoman Empire in 1916. It started as an “all Arabs riot” flag, but was later adopted and recognized as the Palestinian flag. This happened first in 1948 in Gaza and later officially by Yasser Arafat and the PLO at the Palestinian Conference in Jerusalem in 1964.
Many of the Arab countries have similar flags with the same colors used in a different order.
The flag has four colors. From top to bottom it has equal stripes with the colors black, white and green and with a red triangle pointing to the middle of the white band. (Similar to the Jordanian flag only without the seven pointed star in the middle of the red triangle)
The colors represents “bloody chapters” of Arab history.
The red originates from the first Islamic group to emerge after the assassination of Caliph Uthman III in the early days of Islam. Their symbol was the red flag.
The black originated from pre-Islamic times when the black flag was a sign for revenge. It was the color of the headdress worn when leading troops into battle.
The white originated as the color used by the Ummayad Dynasty in the early days of Islam. It was their symbolic color as a reminder of Muhammad’s first battle of Badr.
The green originates from the Fatimid Dynasty ( 909-1171) who took the color green to symbolize their allegiance to Muhammad’s cousin Ali who was once covered in green in order to thwart an assassination attempt against him.
The Palestinian flag does not necessarily awake positive feelings in Jews when seen on street corners or houses.

The Druze people do not have a state of their own but they do have a flag. It has five colors ; green, red, yellow, blue and white. Sometimes the flag shows these colors in equal horizontal stripes and sometimes the green is shaped like a triangle cutting the stripes with the point being on the dividing line between the yellow and the blue.
The flag of the Druze unit in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has a white “star of David” added to the green triangle.
There are various explanations to the colors used in the flag. Some say that each one represents five prophets in the Druze religion and others say that they symbolize different aspects of the Druze faith with green for “mind”, red for “soul”, yellow for “word”, blue for “potential” and white for “the actualization of the potential”. Again there are some who say that green is for “nature”, red is for “heart”, yellow for “wheat”, blue for “sky and water” and white for “purity”. I would add that it makes sense that the flag have five colors as the founder of the Druze faith was called “Hamsa” which means “five” in Arabic.
What is interesting is that the Druze flag does not represent any “threat” . The flag can be seen in many places upon entering a Druze village but there are no bad feelings connected with it.

The Circassian flag shows a cluster of three arrows pointing north, northeast and northwest, three five pointed stars are just above each arrow point and another nine similar stars are above them. The arrows and stars are yellow while the background is green. The flag was designed in 1836.
The arrows symbolize the traditional directions of migration from the Caucasus in ancient times and the stars are symbolizing their tribes. The background color symbolizes the verdant landscape of Circassia. All Circassians have the same flag. They originates from the mountains of Caucasus but was “uprooted” and spread around by the Turkish Ottomans.
Their flag does not represent a threat to anyone.

The Samaritans do not have any flag. They are the smallest ethnic group on earth numbering close to 1000 people. They claim the seven branched candelabra to be their symbol.

Elin Elkouby