The Palestinian flag has become a symbol of American progressivism. What does this mean for Jews?
Last year I attended Boston Pride for the first time, and this year I marched. I’m glad I did, but I probably will not do it again because I don’t like noise, crowds, or people looking at me.
Though the overall experience was mixed, I appreciated getting a full view of the audience on the parade route. When I was a spectator, I only saw a representative sampling on a small section of Clarendon Street, but as a marcher, I saw a much wider portion of the revelers. And I noticed something that I cannot stop thinking about.
The predominant flag that I saw was, of course, the pride/progress flag. But the second most common was the Palestinian flag. I would estimate there were about 50% as many Palestinian flags as pride/progress flags.
Taking it at face value, this is odd. What do the Palestinian people have to do with the liberation of LGBTQ+ people in the United States, and why are they more significant than any other ethnic group? There are Palestinian-Americans in the LGBTQ+ community, but there are also Korean-Americans and Mexican-Americans and Americans from a variety of other countries and backgrounds.
Unsurprisingly, nobody was waving Korean or Mexican flags, at least that I could see. Instead, the Palestinian flag was the accessory du jour. People were using it here and continue to use it in similar contexts as a signifier of their values. Of their progressive credibility. The people waving the Palestinian flag at Pride were probably doing so in support of liberation for all marginalized people.
The Palestinian flag has become a symbol of the fight against oppressors. The LBGTQ+ community is fighting against homophobes and transphobes and all sorts of other phobes just like the Palestinian people are fighting against Israel.
Israel, the only Jewish nation in the world, is the oppressor that symbolizes all other oppressors. To many progressive Americans, all instances of oppression, marginalization, and liberation fit within the Russian nesting doll of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I do not speak for all Jews, but to me, this is cause for concern.
I don’t know if using the Palestinian people as a symbol really does anything for them. It is arguably harmful and dehumanizing. And the use of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as the apotheosis of oppression and liberation certainly does nothing to improve the standing of American Jews.