Sunday, October 13, 2013
Elder of Ziyon
1960: This picture was in a number of Arab stamps. It shows refugees pointing to the area of British Mandate Palestine. Note that Syria always included the West Bank, even though Jordan annexed it; Syria and most Arab countries never recognized that.
1961: What better way to say that Palestine is Arab than to show an Arab?
1965: This same picture was in a number of Arab League country stamps. It is supposed to commemorate the Deir Yassin "massacre."
1965: commemorating "Palestine Week." In this case, the flags are all in pre-1967 Israel.
1968: "Palestine Day," with a torch, right after Syria's defeat in 1967.
1970: The first anniversary of the fire at the Al Aqsa mosque, blamed on Israel.
1973: 25th anniversary of Israel's rebirth. Well, something like that.
1982: This is one of my favorite stamps, both because it has two misspellings and because it has the oxymoronic characterization of the peace dove and the sub-machine gun, with an Israel-shaped keffiyeh for good measure. . For some reason many Westerners just see the dove.
1986: The multiculturalism in having all races want to destroy Israel is a nice touch.
1987: Continuing on the keffiyeh theme. The UN was sponsoring the annual Palestine Solidarity Day (on the anniversary of the 1947 partition plan) so the UN logo is quite appropriate here.
1989: Second anniversary of the "first" intifada. Unlike other cases of supposed Palestinian Arab child art, this looks like it might have actually been drawn by a child.
2001: Celebrating the second intifada. No suicide bombings celebrated in Syrian stamps, alas.
