A Flag Worth Dying For by Tim Marshall

Author:Tim Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

FATAH

Unlike Hamas, Fatah is officially secular, but it carries religious elements within it and its symbolism. Its full title refers to its original name when it was founded by the late Yasir Arafat in the 1950s. In Arabic this was Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini (Palestinian National Liberation Movement), which was reversed and turned into the acronym Fatah. The word fatah is also used among Arab Muslims in a religious context to refer to the rapid expansion of Islam after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Fatah flag is usually yellow but occasionally white. On it are two forearms in the colors of the Palestinian flag (black, white, red, and green) and two hands, each holding an M16 rifle crossed over a map of the territory of the West Bank, Israel, and Gaza, but with no border demarcations. Underneath the rifles is a grenade, and across the center of the image is the word Fatah. At the top, in red, it says “Al-Asifa” (The Storm); underneath the symbol is the party name, and at the bottom of the flag is written “Thawrah Hatta Al-Naser” (Revolution until Victory).

Its main paramilitary wing is the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, although it is unclear how much control Fatah has over it. The Brigades’ emblem, found on yellow flags in the West Bank, is a picture of the Dome of the Rock shrine atop the Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, with two long Palestinian flags wrapped around it. Above it are two crossed rifles and a grenade, and above that a Koranic inscription: “Fight, Allah will punish them by your hand, he will smother them in humiliation, and help you rise above them, and heal the bosom of believers.” At the bottom is the group’s name.

Many people believe that the mosque depicted is called the Al-Aqsa; however, a visit to one of Palestine’s most eminent intellectuals, Mahdi F. Abdul Hadi, clarified the issue. Hadi is chairman of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, based in East Jerusalem. His offices are a treasure trove of old photographs, documents, and symbols. He was kind enough to spend several hours with me. He spread out maps of Jerusalem’s Old City on a huge desk and homed in on the Al-Aqsa compound, which sits above the Western Wall. “The mosque in the Al-Aqsa [Brigades] flag is the Dome of the Rock. Everyone takes it for granted that it is the Al-Aqsa mosque, but no, the whole compound is Al-Aqsa, and on it are two mosques, the Qibla mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and on the flags of both Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Qassam Brigades, it is the Dome of the Rock shown,” he said.

As both an intellectual and a Palestinian, Hadi understands the importance of symbolism to political movements, and he has been fighting symbolic legal battles for decades. In 1948, the Palestinian National Convention in Gaza had adopted the Arab Flag of Revolt as the flag of the Palestinian government. But in 1964 the PLO took it over as its own flag.

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