El-Amiriya Press (anti-Israel protest) (Egypt)

Last modified: 2022-11-12 by ian macdonald
Keywords: el-amiriya press | egypt |
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• About the flag

See also:

• Egypt
• Egypt: Index of all pages
• Anti-Israel flag (Iran)
• Unidentified Anti-Israel flag

About the flag

This red cloth banner/flag has similarity to some Nazi-era banners/flags, especially with the skull-and-crossbones imagery. Its source: http://www.sixdaywar.org/precursors.asp

The original caption read: "Egyptian troops with banners calling for the defeat of Israel and death to the Jews" right before the June 1967 Arab-Israeli "Six Day War."

Upon further inquiry, I learned that while this red cloth banner does look rather menacing, the Arabic-word slogans have nothing to do with either Israel or Jews. Instead, I was informed: "In the Arab world at the height of pan-Arabism, it was not at all uncommon for public institutes, trade unions, universities and many other kinds of organizations and clubs to show their "spontaneous" support of a populist cause (like, say, the annihilation of Israel) simply by putting their name on a banner with the right colors and symbols, so that it would be present in the right time and place, namely in the right demonstration (organized by the regime of course, and yet presented as "the common will of the people"). This was regularly done without specifying the exact political steps these institutions had actually endorsed - sometimes, one could only realize that from whatever slogans they chanted at the demonstration and the way the (again, regime-controlled) media covered it afterwards. If you will, this is not dissimilar to the American habit of "virtue-signaling", where many corporations and individuals put their logo or name next to a color or a symbol which stand for solidarity with a certain social struggle, without saying exactly what steps they support in order to achieve the goals of such a struggle (and often, without saying anything at all on the case in question.) What matters in both cases is the setting, the physical (or today, virtual) context where the gesture was carried out. ....Under the skull-and-bones, the Arabic banner (like the one next to it) reads "Amiriya Public Committee for Press Affairs", and makes no explicit reference to Israel or Jews." But one of the Egyptian soldiers seems to be trumpeting something to the public to catch their attention of their military presence; perhaps some war rally. As the El-Amiriya Press was the first governmental printing press to be established in Egypt in 1820, one might deduce that this skull-and-crossbones banner was sanctioned by the government through its control of the press to stimulate public support for Pres. Nasser's saber-rattling and seizure of the Sinai shortly before the Arab-Israel "Six Day War" that started in early June 1967. It is an unusual-looking "corporate logo".
Bill Garrison, 7 October 2022