Last modified: 2024-04-06 by ian macdonald
Keywords: palestine | popular front for the liberation of palestine | al-jabha al-sha'abiya li-tahrir filastin | pflp | arrow | star: fimbriated (red) | map: palestine |
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![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]](../images/p/pal}pplf.gif) image by Jorge Candeias | 2:3 
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According to Anders Jerichow's PLO – partisaner eller terrorister, Samlerens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1978, the Palestinian People's Liberation Front was splintered in three in 1969:
Ole Andersen, 18 Oct 2000
The splintering happened in two stages. First the PFLP-DFLP split – and to my knowledge the DFLP has never been known as the PDFLP – then the PFLP-PFLP(GC) split.
The PFLP was one of a number of parties under the PLO umbrella from the 1960s until Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo accords in 1993. At this point they left the PLO as they were opposed to the substance of the accords and formed a new umbrella group, the Alliance of Palestinian Forces (APF) to contest the Oslo principles. Although they and the DFLP, who splintered from the PFLP in the late 1960s, left the APF in 1996, they are still opposed to Oslo. The PLO is of course now moribund, having been superseded by the Palestinian Authority.
The PFLP is still involved in military and terrorist activities and indeed has been at the forefront of such activities in recent years. You see the red flag now a lot more than you did in the heyday of the Israeli occupation.
Maher Mughrabi, 11 September 2002
A photo in a newspaper article on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (...) showed a red flag with the PFLP symbol in the centre: a white circular device representing a stylized map of Israel and what looks like an arrow pointing to it with a dot below the arrow. I suppose this arrow-and-dot thing may have some Arabic symbolism other than the obvious one.
Jorge Candeias, 15 July 1998
The emblem represents the return of the Palestinian people, most of which have moved to the East, where the arrow is pointing from.
Al Bitar, 13 February 1999
The arrow is a combination of the first Arabic letter of the word Front and the symbol of the return to the homeland. I believe, but I am not sure, that the designer was the palestinian writer-artist Ghassan Kanafani.
Gunnar Nordin, 16 October 2000
In Anders Jerichow's PLO – partisaner eller terrorister, Samlerens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1978, page 36, is an illustration of PFLP's symbol, "Pilen, som trænger ind i Vestbredden og Israel, er det første skrifttegn i PFLPs navn og betyder "Fronten" (al djabha) (Kilde: PFLPs Manifest, se note 7)." In English, "The arrow, penetrating the West Bank and Israel, is the first letter in PFLP's name, meaning "The Front" (al-jabha) (source: PFLP's Manifesto, see note 7)." Note 7 is PFLP's Manifesto, Strategi för Palestinas Befrielse, Komministiska [sic] Arbetsgruppen, Sverige 1971.
Ole Andersen, 16 October 2000
A large photograph (scan here) accompanying an article in Spanish newspaper El País of 28th August 2001, p. 2, about the killing of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustapha, shows two (apparently identical) PFLP flags, one draped from a roof and the other being flown from a window. Both appear to be squarish rather than rectangular, and show the PFLP emblem in the middle, similar to that on the above images but with a much thicker outside circle and a disc instead of a star (right beneath the arrow). Unlike our GIF, however, there are the letters 'P.F.L.P.' beneath the emblem and the PFLP's name in Arab over it. They both look identical and not homemade, so I guess this is quite an 'official' version of the flag. Please note that both are intended for sinister hoist use.
Santiago Dotor, 6 September 2001
The arrow and dot, as you put it, are stylised so that the tail of the arrow in its right-to-left stroke (with the dot beneath) represents the Arabic letter jeem, the first letter of the word jabha, meaning 'front'.
The attribution to Ghassan Kanafani is highly credible, although I do not know for sure. Kanafani was certainly a member and spokesman of the PFLP until his assassination in 1972.
Maher Mughrabi, 11 September 2002
The logo is described in detail at http://www.palestineposterproject.org/poster/origins-of-the-pflp-logo (also at https://twitter.com/louis_allday).
William Garrison, 14 December 2022
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]](../images/p/pal}pplv.gif)
3:2
image by Jorge Candeias
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp6.jpg)
image located by William Garrison, 8 January 2024
A vertical variation of a PFLP flag with the slogan "Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine" at the top two black lines, and its logo in the middle;
c. 2010. There is a hidden flag-pole sleeve at right (hoist).
William Garrison,
8 January 2024
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Emblem]](../images/p/ps)pflp.gif)
image by Eugene Ipavec, 01 May 2007
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag]](../images/p/ps}pplf2.jpg)
image located by William Garrison, 3 December 2022
Source:
https://www.timesofisrael.
A variation of the "Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine" flag, c. Dec. 2011. What is different about this flag
is that the usual "Right of Return" logo in the middle is slightly altered, and
I believe just the first two Arabic words of the name of this group are printed
in white in Arabic along the bottom of the flag: الجبهة الشعبية [al-Jabhah
al-Sha`biyyah] = ("Popular Front").
William Garrison, 3 December 2022
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp2.gif)
image by Jean-Marc Merklin and Tomislav Todorovic, 26 May 2023
based on photo located by William Garrison, 14 December 2022
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp5.jpg)
image located by William Garrison, 22 October 2023
The national flag of Palestine with its canton capturing the logo of the
"Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine" (PFLP) that champions the "Right
of Return" of displaced/ejected Palestinians back inside of Israel; c. 2005.
William Garrison,
22 October 2023
![[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp7.jpg)
image located by William Garrison, 9 January 2024
A "double logo" version of a "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine"
flag, as seen in Damascus, Syria; c. January 2003. As the logo on the left is
backwards and fainter than the logo on the right, the right logo was probably
printed first, then the flag was turned over so that the logo could be printed
again so that it could be read if seen from the backside. As the printer could
see that the first logo printing had "bled through" to the backside, he most
likely offset the second logo on the backside to avoid washing out both logos
had they been printed atop one another.
William Garrison,
22 October 2023
![[Conjoined flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp1.jpg)
![[Conjoined flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp2.jpg)
![[Conjoined flag]](../images/p/ps}pflp3.jpg)
images located by William Garrison, 19 October 2023
These flags show a cojoined regular "Palestine" national flag attached atop a "PFLP logo" flag. They appear to have been sewn together. However, #1 flag shows the long PFLP name in Arabic in a straight line atop the logo/emblem. #2 shows the long PFLP name encircling their logo. c. 1988. #3 shows the full "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine" name below their logo/emblem. These appear to be two separate flags sewn together. A flag-pole sleeve is at the right side (hoist).
William Garrison, 19 October 2023
![[Conjoined flag]](../images/p/ps}ppsn.jpg)
images located by William Garrison, 23 October 2023
Mimicking the national flag of Palestine, the flag of "Samidoun", a Palestinian
prisoner solidarity network; c. 2015. It is part of the "Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine "(PFLP) and was founded by members of the PFLP in 2012.
On the flag the top Arabic slogan reads "From the river to the sea" and the
bottom line: "Palestine will be free" or in total: "From the Jordan River to the
Mediterranean Sea ... Palestine will be free", meaning that Israel should be
incorporated into Palestinian control.
William Garrison, 23 October 2023
![[Free Georges Abdallah movement (Palestine)]](../images/p/ps}fga.gif)
image located by William Garrison, 4 March 2024
photo located by William Garrison, 11 November 2022
The white-field flag of the Palestine-based "Free Georges Abdallah" movement,
showing a sketch of Georges Abdallah and the national flag of Palestine behind
his portrait caricature; c. Oct. 2021. A similar red-field version exists. Per
Wikipedia: "Georges Ibrahim Abdallah" was born on 2 April 1951, is a Lebanese
communist militant and the longest-held prisoner in Europe. He is currently
[2022] serving a life sentence in France for the 1982 murders of Charles R. Ray
(a U.S military attaché) and Yacov Bari-Mantov (an Israeli diplomat). After his
capture in 1984, he testified: "I do what I do because of the injustice done to
human rights where Palestine is concerned."
William Garrison, 11
November 2022
Image source: https://samidoun.net/2022/10/october-2022-take-action-to-free-georges-abdallah-from-lannemezan-to-brussels-and-beyond/
![[Free Georges Abdallah movement (Palestine)]](../images/p/ps}fga2.jpg)
image located by William Garrison, 4 March 2024
A flag of the "PFLP" containing at the top of the flag the English slogan of
"Free Georges Abdallah & Ahmad Sa'adat" which is also repeated at the bottom of
the flag but in Arabic. Facial portraits of both men are also shown on this flag
- Abdallah on the left hoist side and Sa'adat on the right fly side. Per
Wikipedia, Georges Abdallah (born 2 April 1951) is the longest-held prisoner in
France for the 1982 murders of Charles Ray (a U.S. military attaché) and Yacov
Bar-Simantov (an Israeli diplomat). The murders were conducted in retaliation
for American and Israeli involvement in the 1982 Lebanon War. Ahmad Sa'adat
(born 1953) is a Palestinian PFLP militant imprisoned in Israel since 2008 for
allegedly organizing the assassination of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam
Ze'evi in 2001. The hoist is on the left side.
William Garrison, 4 March 2024
