Those who admonish Palestinian Resistance, armed or otherwise, have little understanding of the psychological ramifications of resistance, such as a sense of collective empowerment, honor and hope.

But resistance is not just a rifle or a rocket launcher. The latter are but one manifestation of resistance, and if not backed by strong popular support, they hardly have much impact.

Indeed, all forms of sustainable resistance have to be rooted in culture, which helps it generate new meanings over time.

In the case of the Palestinian struggle, the concept of resistance is multifaceted and strongly embedded in the collective psyche of generations of Palestinians, which allows it to surpass the ideological and political confines of factions and political groups.

Though the symbols of this resistance – for example, the keffiyeh, the flag, the map and the key – are part of this generation of meanings, they are mere signifiers of ideas, beliefs and values that are truly profound.

No matter how hard Israel has tried to discredit, ban or recounter these symbols, it has failed and will continue to fail.

In the early 2000s, for example, Israeli fashion designers created what were supposed to be Israeli kuffiyehs. From a distance, the Israeli scarves looked similar to the Palestinian traditional scarves, except that they were mostly blue. At a closer look, one would be able to decipher that the Israeli replica of the Palestinian national symbol is often a clever manipulation of the Star of David.

This could easily be classified under the banner of cultural appropriation. In actuality, it is far more complex.

Palestinians did not invent the keffiyeh, or hatta, one of the most common neck or even head scarves throughout the Middle East. But they did take ownership of it, giving it deeper meanings—dissent, revolution, unity.

The keffiyeh’s prominence was partly compelled by Israel’s own actions and restrictions.

After occupying the remainder of historic Palestine, namely East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel immediately banned the Palestinian flag. That ban was part of a much larger restrictive campaign aimed at preventing Palestinians from expressing their political aspirations, even if symbolic.

What the Israeli military administration could not prevent was the use of the keffiyeh, which was a staple in every Palestinian home. Subsequently, the keffiyeh quickly became the new symbol of Palestinian nationhood and resistance, at times even replacing the now-banned flag.

The history of the keffiyeh goes back many years before the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine by Zionist militias in 1947-48.

In fact, if one examines any revolt in Palestine’s modern history, from the 1936-39 Palestinian strike and rebellion to Palestinian resistance during the Nakba to the Fedayeen movement in the early 1950s, all the way to the present, the keffiyeh has featured prominently as arguably the most important Palestinian symbol.

Yet, the real rise of the keffiyeh as the symbol of global solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinians did not become a truly international phenomenon until the First Intifada in 1987. It was then that the world watched in awe an empowered generation only armed with rocks facing the well-equipped Israeli army.

TWO TYPES OF SYMBOLS

It is worth noting that when we talk about the ‘symbolism’ of Palestinian cultural symbols and counter-Israeli cultural symbols, we refer to two types of symbols: one laden with intangible, although quintessential representations—for example, the watermelon—and another with tangible and consequential representations—for example, the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a symbol of Palestinian spirituality, history, and nationalism, and it is also an actual physical structure located in an occupied Palestinian city, Al-Quds, East Jerusalem. For many years, Israel has perceived the Mosque with alarm, countering the Palestinian claim by alleging that, beneath Al-Aqsa, there lie the ruins of the Jewish Temple, whose resurrection is critical for Jewish spirituality and purification.

Therefore, Al-Aqsa cannot be considered a mere symbol, serving the role of a political representation. On the contrary, it has grown in terms of imports to carry a much more profound meaning in the Palestinian struggle. It would not be an exaggeration to argue that the survival of Al-Aqsa is now directly linked to the very survival of the Palestinian people as a nation.

According to renowned Swiss linguist Fernand de Saussure, every sign or symbol is composed of a ‘signifier’, meaning the form that the sign takes, and the ‘signified’, the concept that it represents.

For example, although a map is commonly defined as the geographic representation of an area or a territory merely showing physical features and certain characteristics of the place, it can take on a different ‘signified’ when the territory or land in question is an occupied one, as Palestine is. Therefore, the physical representation of Palestine’s borders became, with time, a powerful symbol, reflecting the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people throughout history.

The same process was applied to the keys belonging to those very refugees, the victims of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The only difference is that while the villages existed and then ceased to exist, the key existed as a physical object before and after the Nakba. The house and the door are, perhaps, gone, but there is a physical key that still, symbolically, unlocks the dichotomy of the past, with the hope of, one day, restoring the door and the house as well.

In view of this, the segment of land stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea ceased to be just sand, water, grass, and stones and became a representation of something else entirely.

It must be denoted that the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ neither references actual topography nor politics. It is based on the understanding that a disruptive historical event has wrought a great deal of injustice, pain and hurt to historic Palestine. Confronting this injustice cannot be segmented, and it must take place through a wholesome process that would allow the land but, more importantly, the native inhabitants of that land to restore their dignity, rights and freedom.