Last modified: 2024-01-20 by martin karner
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image by Jaume Ollé, 11 January 1998
See also:
I was surprised to see very few elements on our website about this
"Palestine flag" shown in Petit Larousse in 1934
(picture) and 1939
(picture).
This drawing was used in recent years for political polemics about the
history of Palestine and Israel, some people interpreted the presence
of this Zionist flag in the Larousse dictionnary as the evidence of it
being officially the flag of Palestine.
An Instagram post shows an image of this flag and reads that "this was the flag
of Palestine before modern day Israel was reborn in 1948" (archive link: https://archive.is/OC0sD).
Examples of media reactions to the Instagram post:
France24: https://www.france24.com/... (same video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBeFl1ucuX0)
USA Today: https://eu.usatoday.com/...
Articles showing examples of the same Zionist flag:
https://mabatim.info/... (French, PDF with English translation)
https://orenu.co.il/... (Russian, PDF with English translation)
Olivier Touzeau, 22 July 2025
Recently a social media post about the "Palestine flag", which
Olivier is referring to, caused some nervous reactions in the media; two of them are cited by him
(France24 and USA Today).
First of all it has to be said that the debunking of the "myth,
that this flag was not the official flag of Palestine" is not really newsworthy anymore. FOTW readers
could have known this for quite a long time: Jaume Ollé correctly referred to this flag as the
"flag of the Palestine Jews" (not a state), and at Use of Zionist Flags
in the Palestine Mandate it is clearly stated that there wasn't an official Zionist flag beside the
official flag of the British Mandate (the British Union Jack). The statement of
Rob, quoted by USA Today, confirms this.
The false statement of that social media poster could have been debunked quickly, without any fuss.
So why this nervous attention for a single post? Could it be that with the attribution of that flag as
"official Flag of Palestine" the legal foundations of the State of Israel could get a legitimacy,
which in their eyes this state doesn't have? Indeed, if the State of Israel has a strong legal foundation,
the narratives of many Western media outlets towards Israel are being challenged hard. These narratives
are largely based on the assumption that this state has only weak legal and moral foundations. But in fact
the editors of Larousse had their reasons for depicting the aforementioned flag as a reference to the
coming statehood of Israel, which had already been officially promised at that time. This flag reflected the
reality of Mandatory Palestine at that time far better than the official flag of the British Mandate –
the Larousse editors were no ignoramuses.
Instead of fueling superficial outrage over a wrong pro-Israeli social media post, the journalists could
have asked the questions underlying the controversy. What could have been the reasons why the Larousse
editors displayed this flag instead of the official one? What are the actual legal foundations for the
Israeli state, which is once again being portrayed by some as illegitimate? The journalists of
France24 could have asked e.g. their fellow countryman Dr. Jacques Gauthier, an
international lawyer and expert on the legal status of Jerusalem (see video below). He could have shown
them that not by a UN resolution in 1947, but already in the Conference of San Remo in 1920 the legal
foundations of the Jewish State were laid. The purpose of the Conference was to divide the non-Turkish territories of the
Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. It was about Mesopotamia (Irak), Syria/Lebanon and Palestine. The San
Remo Resolution was the basis on which the mandate territories of Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia were
created. It made the Balfour Declaration from 1917 (which was a mere declaration of intent until then) a
binding international law.
The Resolution not only formed the basis for the British Mandate for Palestine, adopted by the Council of
the League of Nations in July 1922, but also – inextricably linked to it – for the establishment
of "the national home" for the Jews. This objective under international law is contained in the
preamble to the mandate: The mandatory power (UK) was declared "responsible for implementing the
declaration originally made on November 2, 1917, by His Britannic Majesty's Government" (i.e. the Balfour
Declaration), namely, "to establish in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people". The
preamble explicitly recognizes "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and
"the reasons for restoring the national home in that country". Article 2 states: "The Mandatory
shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions
as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the
development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all
the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion." The Mandate can be regarded as
affecting the Jewish people worldwide that it provided a national home for all Jews everywhere to return to,
encouraging settlement in Palestine and therefore immigration (Art. 6) and facilitating the acquisition of
citizenship (Art. 7). It was anticipated that non-Jews would live as a protected population within the
Jewish national home, i.e. the Arabs should have all civil rights, but have no territorial sovereignty in
Palestine. Instead they should have the sovereignty over the other Mandate territories, from which the
modern Arab states emerged (Nevertheless Palestine was divided later and the Arabs were given the bigger
part of it, which became Jordan). Whoever questions the legitimacy of Israel based on the provisions of
San Remo and the Mandate, questions also the legitimacy of the Arab states that emerged from these treaties.
The long story short: Undoubtedly the Larousse editors had all this in mind, when they printed their flag
plates in the 1930s. They recognized that the legal foundations and the aspirations of the Jewish population
of Palestine would inevitably lead to the establishment of a Jewish state, which was only a matter of time.
One can assume that they knew what the official flag of the Mandate looked like, but they also saw that it
reflected in no way the new reality in Palestine. Therefore they decided to choose a flag that resembled a
future Israeli flag much more closely than the unpopular flag of the Mandatory power. They did not act
wrongly or "racist" in doing so, because Mandatory Palestine was never intended for Arab
sovereignty.
It was probably this fact that the aforementioned blogger wanted to express with his –
admittedly false – post. But such a trivial episode does not justify any media excitement.
Martin Karner, 21 August 2025
It is worth noting that this also corresponds to a highly Eurocentric period during which Muslim
populations were not always, unlike todays, regarded as equals. The defining characteristic of Mandatory
Palestine was its Jewish component, just as the defining feature of Lebanon, its counterpart under French
mandate, was its Christian, and more specifically Maronite, identity. It is possible that Larousse was
attempting to create an equivalent to the Lebanese flag featuring the cedar tree, which, although it now
symbolizes the unity of modern Lebanon and is embraced by both Christians and Muslims, was historically a
distinct emblem of the Maronites (cf. Jaume Ollé's contribution).
After all, we must not forget that the symbol of the Star of David is nearly identical to that of the Seal
of Solomon, which is also used by Muslims. The seal was on Moroccan coins and certain stamps until 1954
[see also Star of
David blog > "Solomon's Seal"].
While it is almost certain that the design was first influenced by a variant of the Zionist flag, we should
not overlook the fact that the symbol belongs to the Muslim cultural imagination as well and could have had
a chance of being adopted like the cedar. Mandatory Lebanon was conceived as a Christian stronghold,
particularly Maronite, within a predominantly Muslim population. Mandatory Palestine was built around the
promise of a Jewish national home, with strong emphasis placed on its Jewish component, to the detriment of
Muslim and Christian Arabs.
Jean-Marc Merklin, 21 August 2025
