“Forbidden Colors” Coming to Light

By Palestine Center Interns — Sarah Dickshinski, Abby Massell, Zoë Reinstein, and Mirvat Salameh

Since its founding in 2000, Gallery Al-Quds at The Jerusalem Fund has been the sole full-time area showcase for the exhibition of contemporary Arab and Arab-American artists. This summer, the gallery presents “Forbidden Colors,” examining 30 artists’ responses to various forms of censorship or political pressure — specifically, the 1980 Israeli law forbidding artwork composed of the four colors of the Palestinian flag: red, green, black, and white. The artists hail from across the Middle East and the United States and have produced work spanning all media.

Palestinian nationalism is and has always been viewed as a threat to Israeli occupation and apartheid policies. The historically widespread display of the Palestinian flag proves that Palestinians are a distinct nationality with a collective identity attached to their land and rich culture. The Palestinian flag was established long before the 1948 Nakba and served as a mechanism of solidifying Palestinian nationalism and Arab unity under Ottoman rule. The origins of the flag trace back to the Flag of the Arab Revolt under the British Mandate for Palestine. The creator of the flag has been disputed by many. Some believe it was created by Arab nationalists and others assert that the flag was designed by Sir Mark Sykes of Britain, a true irony. The design was later adopted by the All-Palestine Government and recognized by the Arab League as the official flag of Palestine.1

In 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) adopted a version of this flag (the colors reorganized) to represent the Palestinian people. Following the 1967 War, the Israeli government passed a law banning the flag’s use in Gaza and the West Bank. Thirteen years later the Knesset (the Israeli legislature) prohibited the inclusion of the flag’s colors in artwork as well as the production of any art that reflected “political significance.” This 1980 law clearly limited Palestinian freedom of expression and attempted to deny Palestinian identity. The law endured until 1993 when it was abolished during the Oslo I Accord, and while the 1967 law prohibiting the display of the Palestinian flag was also lifted in 1993, a strong legacy of excluding the flag from political and popular contexts still exists in Israel and around the world.

The flag, accompanied by images of the keffiyeh and children raising peace signs, instills feelings of hope and perseverance among the Palestinian people. It has served as a symbol of resistance to Israeli oppression for generations. Despite the occupation authorities’ attempts to suppress Palestinian nationalism throughout the ban, the flag continued to represent the Palestinian struggle and people found ways to display it and express their national pride in secret. Before the law was lifted in 1993, it was commonplace for children to quietly draw and display the flag around cities and towns, undetected in the darkness of night. The ban placed on the colors of the Palestinian flag also elicited other forms of resistance such as the boycott of Israeli art materials, leading Palestinian artists to create their own pigments out of flowers and other organic ingredients to continue their exhibition of the flag. These acts of resistance were met with Israeli force intended to crush feelings of nationalism and solidarity. Dr. Jad Isaac, a Palestinian from Beit Sahour defied the ban in 1988 during the first intifada by planting and distributing seeds to almost 100,000 people that grew into vegetables in the colors of the flag. He was then arrested and served six months in the Ansar III desert prison.2  A photo representing the vegetables was styled in the shape of the flag by photographer and artist Andrew Courtney, whose work is included in the “Forbidden Colors” exhibit.

What is it about the flag that evokes feelings of unity and hope for the Palestinian people? As a population denied its basic right to exist, Palestinians look to the flag to express their social and political identities. Key symbols are central to the construction of any sort of collective identity, hence during the intifada the colors of the flag served as a token of resistance and spread across the Occupied Territories. Palestinians who experienced the 1967 and 1980 bans or wish to commemorate the brave artists and individuals who defied it honor the flag by proudly displaying its once forbidden colors.

When the bans of the flag and its colors were lifted in 1993 Palestinians became free to display the four forbidden colors in the West Bank and Gaza. However, the issue persists today throughout the world. For example, Eurovision — the annual music competition among European Broadcasting Union (EBU) member states — released a list of flags banned from the 2016 competition. This included but was not limited to the flags of Nagorno-Karabakh, Crimea, ISIS, and Palestine. This rule was allegedly formulated due to the “non-political” nature of the competition; however, the ban is inherently political. By placing Palestine in the same category as ISIS, this move delegitimizes the movement for Palestinian statehood and pairs it with an internationally despised terrorist group. Eurovision’s stance was far more provocative and divisive than productive. Moreover, the highly political LGBTQ* rainbow flag3 is permitted, which is a blatant act of hypocrisy and, in this case, constitutes an example of pinkwashing.

The continuing hysteria surrounding the Palestinian flag is far from over, even in the United States. In October 2015 campus police at George Washington University in Washington, DC demanded that pre-med student Rami Aboujana remove the Palestinian flag hanging outside his dorm room window. The school first supported this decision by claiming that it was enforcing the rule that no items be hung outside dorm windows for safety reasons. However, GWU then apologized to Mr. Aboujana when it became clear that this was the only instance of this rule being enforced regarding a flag, a clear act of discrimination on the school’s part. Flags of countless nationalities,  including Israeli, are regularly displayed in this way throughout campus.

That the “forbidden colors” of the Palestinian flag still carry such a stigma — over a decade after Palestinians won this battle — indicates that exhibitions that bring exposure to this continuing issue (such as  “Forbidden Colors” at Gallery Al-Quds) are of the utmost importance. We are reminded that art is perhaps the most powerful tool of resistance and revolution, and the artists featured in this show exemplify this in the works they contributed.

A walk through the gallery with curator, artist, and Jerusalem Fund staff member, Dagmar Painter, reveals a diverse collection of art — photographs, embroidery, pottery, and collage, and artists — professors, architects, activists, and poets. The art is united in its desire to resist any kind of censorship. While Painter presented these artists with the 1980 law as a prompt to create work inspired by the “forbidden colors,” the use of other colors is recurrent. In parallel with the prompt she clarifies with a smile, “nothing, of course, is forbidden.”

The exhibition is open from June 3, to August 12, 2016, Monday-Friday 9:30am-5pm, or by appointment.

Gallery Al-Quds welcomes inquiries from artists wishing to exhibit in our space in the future. Please send an email with a short resume and several digital samples of your work to Dagmar Painter (dpainter@thejerusalemfund.org).

1. Podeh, Elie. “The Symbolism of the Arab Flag in Modern Arab States: Between Commonality and Uniqueness*.” Nations and Nationalism 17, no. 2 (2011): 433-35.

2. “Jad Isaac – Witness.” Chicago Hearing. American Friends Service Committee, Chicago. 18 Apr. 2010. Web. 10 June 2016. <http://www.chicagohearing.org/contents/witness/jad_isaac.php>.

3. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning

Sarah Dickshinski, Abby Massell, Zoë Reinstein, and Mirvat Salameh are the Summer 2016 Interns at The Jerusalem Fund and Palestine Center.

The views in this brief are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.