In the Israel-Palestine conflict, and within the deeper realm of solutions to said conflict, lies the proposal of a united state of Israel and Palestine, or a union state. The basic concept behind this is the idea that instead of two separate states or one state dominated by Arabs or Jews (or alternatively put dominated by Palestinians or Israelis), there would be a unified state in the territory. This state would of course see neither group dominate the other, and would be irreligious (or alternatively bi-religious). This state would provide equal rights for both groups, and would therefore use the imagery of both groups, or alternatively generic imagery, representing no group, but a pure, non-ethnic state.
In this author’s opinion this idea is fairly unrealistic, but can be interesting to speculate on and review proposals for this hypothetical state’s flag. In this I will use a few random examples I found online. These flags are not necessarily pushed through by any given group, and I am unaware of the flag designers in question. I will look at these flags through the points of view of design and symbolism, separately.
And… we commence:
This flag is in my opinion okay from a design point of view. The black and green contrast well on the upper and lower edges, adding a certain solidity to the flag. The red of the Star of David doesn’t look amazing with the two aforementioned colors, but does well with the white. This brings me to the issue of symbolism.
While the flags design is okay, its symbolism is a different matter entirely. To me, this flag feels like the nobody wins option for a flag. On one hand, this flag has a strong Israeli design bent, with the two stripes along the top and bottom, and the Star of David in the middle, I can see the Israeli imagery out in force, which is not to good for a flag trying to represent both groups, if this flag contained symbols of both, it would be more unifying. Now, the reason neither side wins with this flag is the colors. Besides keeping white, a color found on both Israeli and Palestinian flags, the red, green, and black are all found only on the flag of Palestine. I could easily see some issues with having no blue whatsoever to represent Jews.
Overall, I’m not overly fond of this flag, its adequate design is offset by the disunity of symbolism in the flag, as if it was made to keep the best of both worlds, without actually satisfying anybody.
Like the prior one, I have a broadly positive opinion of the design of this flag. It relies on a design similar to the Israeli flag, which is a flag which I enjoy aesthetically. I like the center seal, which would work well for a bi-religious state, and I like how the designer equalized green and blue into a light cyan. Cyan is one of those colors where when it is used in a darker shade it can be pretty repulsive, but oddly enough a light cyan looks very nice. The slant on Star of David should be undone in my opinion, but it’s a small detail.
Symbolically I also enjoy this flag. The use of religious symbols only in the seal could be criticized by the secular peoples of the union, but could easily be justified with a reminder of the nature of the prior Israeli flag, and the hypothetically bi-religious nature of the state. There could also be some criticism of the Star of David’s size in comparison to the crescent. This isn’t too much of an issue though, and it’s hard to create a good, easily legible seal with two equally large symbols.
I firmly enjoy this flag. In terms of design it uses good colors, which fit together well, and the star and crescent were combined in a clearly legible manner. Symbolically the flag has a clear meaning, and the use cyan is a very good amalgamation. While the first flag shows combining flags in a negative sense, this shows how aspects of flags can be combined well.
Finally, we have this flag. It is the most unusual of all the designs, even when compared to historical and current sorts. The three bands in between the white stripes on the upper and lower edges is a design I don’t really like. The overuse of different colors can feel really overwhelming, and many colors used don’t pair well with one of their fellows in these sorts of flags. Despite this, due to the two white strips in top and bottom, the usual issues are at least not as present. Blue, black, and white contrast well, but the blue did not fit too well with green, and the black and green are too separated to synergize. This is not to mention the fact that with green in the equation it ruins the synergistic possibility of the aforementioned color trio. All this really makes me dislike this design, though as I suggested prior, it could be much worse.
When it comes to a flag, symbolism is even more important than design, and unfortunately, this flag partially lacks the symbolism necessary in a flag like this. The white stripes seem to be a natural holdover from the Israeli flag, while the light blue and green clearly symbolize Jews and Palestinians respectively, the black on the other hand, is the mystery. One color one could associate with both ultraorthodox Jews and fundamentalist Islam (the particularly radical sort) is black. This could symbolize both sorts of fundamentalist, as a unified community. This seems unlikely, as it would be odd to lump two large and distinct groups together. This is not to mention that the groups that come to mind when many think of black and fundamentalist Islam, they think of the flags of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which probably would not be fond of a union like this to say the least. As a result, it is unlikely that such a color would be used to symbolize any sort of Islam in a flag like this. The only other possibility is that it could symbolize ultraorthodox Jews alone. This feels like the most plausible possibility for an insular community such as that. As I stated before, the lack of clear symbolism is not ideal, even if it only afflicts one color in the flag.
The choice of the five stripe design for this flag is risky, and the issues with symbolism were a glaring issue which was simple to remedy. One simple improvement to this flag without making a complete change in its design would be to remove the problematic black stripe. This would allow for a more stable looking flag, and the two stripes representing two ethnic groups could prove striking.
Overall, as you might be able to tell, I am someone who enjoys vexillology, and design in general. I hope this has been interesting, even though these are all speculative flags for a speculative state. I think this outlines many important considerations when creating flags, and the necessity in balancing design and symbolism to create a memorable, meaningful flag, which can properly represent the people of a nation.
