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Presidential Standard (Palestine)

1:2
by Marcus Schmöger

Description
Former Flag

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Palestine

Description

A desk flag version of the Chairman's Standard could be seen in a photograph [similar to this one in Der Spiegel] published in Yediot Akhronot newspaper of June 8th of a meeting between Chairman Arafat (his official title is Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority, not president) and the German foreign minister.

Anonymous, 11 June 2001

BBC World television channel showed yesterday Javier Solana, the European Union foreign affairs representative, meeting Yasser Arafat. They were seating at a table which displayed three desktop flags:

the European Union one;
the Palestinian flag with a 'short' red triangle approximately as long as 1/4th the flag's length; and
a Palestinian flag with a 'long' red triangle approximately as long as half the flag's length and some kind of golden emblem centered on the fly (i.e. on the fly half of the flag).

The emblem was mostly golden (it might bear the Palestinian arms on the middle, so that the central escutcheon in the Arab colours would scarcely be visible) and almost certainly had some kind of laurel or olive wreath around it. The whole thing was not circular, rather an upright oval, and exceeded the width of the white stripe, so that it ran on top of both the black and green stripes (about a third of the height of each). The flag had a golden fringe, I seem to recall that neither the European Union nor the Palestinian (national) flags had one.

I found strange the simultaneous and official display of two versions of the Palestinian flag —one with a quarter-length triangle, the other with a half-length one— suggesting that the first one is correct on the plain flag while the latter is used on other (which?) flags. We used to show a half-length-triangle flag on FOTW because it was identified as correct by the PASSIA or Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs.

Santiago Dotor, 26 July 2001

German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, no. 24/2001, 11th June 2001, showed a photograph of a small Palestinian presidential flag. As we do not yet have an image of this flag I tried a first, very crude reconstruction.

Marcus Schmöger, 18 August 2001

During president Arafat's talk on TV on 16 December 2001, I noticed that his personal flag had slightly changed, with respect to what I reported in 1999: on top of the swords there is now a golden Saladin eagle. Also the flag is now golden fringed [possibly only on indoor versions] and the lower band was dark green.

Armand Noel du Payrat, 18 December 2001

Former Flag

On a colour photo I saw of president Arafat's bureau, there was a triband black over white over light blue (instead of green), with 2 crossed golden swords surrounded by palms in the white band: is that the official flag or a different one?

Armand Noel du Payrat, 15 February 1999

The Presidential Flag is flown only at the Presidential office and higher government officials (ministers, etc.). It is an exact replica of the common flag, the only difference being the golden swords and the palm trees placed in the corner [sic — centre?] of the white strip.

Al Bitar (Palestinian Embassy at Bucharest), 15 February 1999