Respecting each other’s wearable politics

It will never cease to amaze me that when two people look at an object, they can experience two radically different associations. That’s because it’s not just beauty that’s in the eye of the beholder, it’s also context and lived experience.   

To someone who came to Australia fleeing persecution and found safety and comfort, the Australian flag might represent hope, new beginnings and a fair go.

However, to many Aboriginal people, the Australian flag represents colonisation, violence, disenfranchisement and a country that allows the sovereign owners of the land on which they live to die on average almost a decade sooner than the non-Aboriginal population.  

In the early days of the current war in the Middle East, I saw a social media post by someone who had walked into a bookshop and demanded the owner remove the Palestinian flag displayed in the front window, because it was “antisemitic”. 

By the same token, I know people who have been abused for wearing a Star of David in public because it apparently denotes their commitment to the genocide and murder of babies. It’s the same with the Israeli flag; to show pride or stand under an Israeli flag means you are not just a murder apologist, but an active, enthusiastic participant.

What we have here is more than a fundamental inability for people on both sides to really listen. We are also seeing deliberate attempts on both sides to police the identity – and the way that identity is expressed – of the other, instead of asking questions that might enlighten or inform them.

The keffiyeh came to prominence during the 1936-39 Palestinian uprising, though its history in the region goes back much further. Different versions of the keffiyeh have different cultural associations, but the black and white keffiyeh was made famous by Yasser Arafat and is now a symbol of Palestinian nationalism and pride. For the vast majority of Palestinian people and their allies, the keffiyeh is a symbol of Palestinian pride, culture and the dream of true, meaningful Palestinian statehood. 

Unfortunately, there are many Israelis and Jews who look at the keffiyeh and see a physical manifestation of a threat to their existence, synonymous with terrorism. When three actors in Sydney wanted to show their solidarity with Palestine and appeared for their curtain call wearing keffiyehs, there was an outcry.

Of course, this was rooted in a collective trauma so evident that it needs no explanation, but really, realistically, does anyone truly believe those three actors wanted to promote terrorism? To engage in a call to violence? 

The fear of the keffiyeh has in part been driven by racist depictions of the keffiyeh in popular culture. And yet the vast majority of domestic terrorism in Western countries has been conducted by white, lone, gunmen wearing jeans or combat pants. Still, we don’t assume that every white man walking around in jeans or combat pants is a terrorist.

The keffiyeh is a symbol, chosen by Palestinians, of resistance and culture. Within that spectrum, there are people who would incite or commit violence. There is also a vast majority who would not. 

People must be allowed to express solidarity with Palestine and with Palestinians. Palestinian farmers have been wearing the keffiyeh since the Ottoman Period. Its history in the region goes back to 3100 BCE. For the vast majority of people protesting on Australian streets, the keffiyeh is a visible, meaningful way they choose to express solidarity with Palestinian civilians, who are not Hamas, and are being killed in their thousands in a campaign of misplaced revenge for the horrors of October 7.

Equally, some people feel threatened by the Palestinian flag, rooted in a fundamental belief that the very existence of Palestine or Palestinians is a threat to Israel or to Jewish people. Even among people who acknowledge that for a two-state solution there must be two states, the Palestinian flag can elicit fear. We must start separating governments from their people – they are not the same thing, especially in countries that aren’t operating transparent, functional democracies, like Israel and Palestine.

So where does that leave Palestinian identity? How can they show their nationalism? Their pride in being Palestinian? How do they express it? Can they express it at all?

The Israeli flag started out as the Zionist flag in the Second Zionist Congress held in Switzerland in 1898. It was later adopted as the flag of the state of Israel on its founding 1948.

Theodore Herzl’s 1896 booklet The Jewish State explains clearly that the national flag of the Jewish state is based on the tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, the blue representing the colour of the high priests’ robes in ancient times.  

The Israeli flag has also been subject to “false advertising”, with the prosecution of a demonstrably false narrative that the two stripes represent the Nile and Euphrates Rivers and therefore a desire on the part of the Jews to claim everything in between. It’s a disproven furphy, but no less deep-seated than any other antisemitic conspiracy, stereotype or trope. 

In the wide spectrum of people who support Israel’s existence – and make no mistake, it is a wide and varied spectrum opinion and reasoning – there are people who stand proudly under an Israeli flag who would incite or commit violence. There is also the vast majority who would not.

But let’s be honest; neither of these reactions are totally devoid of foundation.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a war criminal and terrorist, has been photographed many times in a keffiyeh. High-ranking Hezbollah official Muhammad Nimah Nasser (killed just weeks ago in an air strike in Lebanon) has also been pictured in a keffiyeh. You can see how some Israelis or Jews might see the keffiyeh as threatening.

When Israeli settlers conduct illegal incursions into Palestinian land, when they engage in terrorism and even murder, they do so under an Israeli flag (quite often there’s one pinned to their uniform). When soldiers in the Israeli army engage in war crimes, they do so under an Israeli flag. When the right-wing nut jobs in the Israeli government – not just buzzing blowflies but actual sitting members of ruling coalition – talk about flattening Gaza or wiping out all Palestinians, they do so under an Israeli flag. You can see how some Palestinians or Muslims might see the Israeli flag as threatening.

The idea that all people who wear a keffiyeh are terrorists is about as ridiculous as saying that all people who stand under an Israeli flag are genocidal maniacs. 

The idea that all people who wave a Palestinian flag are calling for the annihilation of Israel is insanity. As is the idea that anyone wearing a Star of David rejoices in the deaths of Palestinian children. 

These absolutes are damaging. Political leanings or loyalties are a spectrum. There are really amazing people on the left and on the right. There are extremist Palestinians and extremist Israelis. There are extremist Muslims and extremist Jews. The only absolute in this or any scenario is that the deaths of all civilians is wrong. Breaches of international law and the laws of war by any nation or leader are wrong. These are the evils. Not whole groups of people.

Part of being an ally and building bridges is sitting in discomfort, hearing someone else’s perspective, when it is different to your own, or in some cases, diametrically opposed. This is the very nature of truth-telling and why it is so often ignored. It’s hard to listen.

Unpacking the varying factors that drive antisemitism and Islamophobia requires active listening, something few of us seem to be inclined to do right now. 

But if we face up to our knee-jerk reactions each time with a question, asked in good faith, and we listen to the answer rather than jump to a conclusion based on our own trauma, rather than someone else’s lived experience or identity, which they alone have a right to define, we might just find a fresh perspective we weren’t expecting.