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Friday, June 21, 2013

Egyptian anti-Israel postage stamps

(Fourth of a series of articles about Arab anti-Israel stamps.)

Egypt has published many, many anti-Israel stamps. 

A great number of them were centered around Palestine refugees:

World Refugee Year, 1960. Arabs pointing to map of "Palestine"



1961 "Palestine Day"

1968
The 1970 stamp glamorized PLO terror attacks:

1970
The 1972 stamp added a religious dimension, showing an image of the Dome of  the Rock:


1972
 The 1973 stamp seemed to be an early example of the "starving refugee" meme:

1973


 The 1976 and 1977 stamps made the religious theme a bit more explicit, as the stylized "refugees" stare at the Dome of the Rock:




By 2000, the link with Islam was complete with a photo of the Al Aqsa Mosque along with the PLO flag:



In 1957, Egypt celebrated Israel's giving Gaza back after the 1956 war, with this Egyptian stamp overstruck in Gaza with the word "Palestine:"



In 1962, Egypt issued a stamp to commemorate the fifth anniversary of its re-occupation of Gaza. Even then, Egypt held to the fiction that Gaza was sort-of independent "Palestine" while still part of the "Arab nation."




Egypt, along with most other Arab League countries, issued a commemoration of Deir Yassin in 1965 - all the stamps were used an identical graphic:


This stamp was apparently released right after the Six Day War, but it appears it was designed beforehand to show Arab solidarity for "the defense of Palestine."  Note that this time, the map is only of ISrael, not British Mandate Palestine, making it clear what the end goal was:


This 1970 stamp commemorates the supposed bombing by Israel of a civilian metal factory in Abu Zabbaiin 1970.


They also had one (not pictured) about Israel's attack on a Libya commercial plane that veered into Israel and refused to answer any signals in 1973.

Egypt released many stamps commemorating the Yom Kippur War. There was one literally every year for the first 15 years after the war, and every five years afterwards. 

1973. "Spark of Liberation" implies that it would be followed by more.
 The 1980 stamp, like some others, employs "peace doves" to commemorate a sneak attack war.

1980

1984

1985

1986
Of course, Egypt also commemorated the first intifada in 1988::