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Abstract
In the spring of 2002 Israeli flags began to appear in loyalist communities in Northern Ireland. The appearance of these flags was in one respect explained as a response to the increased prevalence of Palestinian flags in nationalist neighbourhoods. However, the appearance and continued display of the Israeli flag can be seen to extend beyond a “wholly relational” dynamic to encompass the connotations this flag has come to possess for those who fly it in regard to the contemporary political situation within Northern Ireland and events on the international stage in the context of the United States' post-September 11 “War on Terror.” At the same time, the flying of the Israeli flag in Northern Ireland provides a graphic demonstration of the increased prevalence of political symbolism in the post-Troubles era and the way in which groups in Northern Ireland have sought to reference and draw upon similar conflict situations for their own agendas.
The authors thank the anonymous referees.
Notes
1. The final version of this article was submitted in April 2007. CitationBryan and Stevenson (2007) confirm that Israeli flags were being flown in Northern Ireland in autumn 2006. A comment is perhaps required on the distinction between “loyalism” and “unionism” (as both terms are used in this article). We take loyalism to designate a sub-set of unionism marked by a particularly fervent commitment to the status of Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom and the maintenance of Protestant hegemony there.
2. The Belfast Agreement brought into being a power-sharing executive (incorporating unionist and nationalist parties) within Northern Ireland, along with cross-border (with the Republic of Ireland), and all-Ireland bodies.
3. Along with the Belfast Telegraph (itself pro-unionist), the News Letter and the Irish News are the only Northern-Ireland-wide daily newspapers. Stories relating to the flying of Israeli flags were identified from a survey, using the Lexis Nexis package, of these three newspapers over a twelve-month period beginning on 1 April 2002. We also surveyed the newsletters An Phoblacht/Republican News and Loyalist over a three–year period from the beginning of 2002 to the end of 2004. Whilst the appearance of Palestinian and Israeli flags in Belfast has received most attention, the display of these flags was not limited to the city. Clusters of Israeli flags have for example been observed by the authors in Antrim, Coleraine, and Newbuildings.
4. Our emphasis.
5. See also John Keenan's comment, quoted below.
6. The fact that these comments appeared in a nationalist newspaper can be taken as indicative of this community's identification with the Palestinians and the perceived culpability of the Israelis in this conflict.
7. This situation has shifted somewhat more recently with the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in August–September 2005.
8. A certain paradox might be detected here, as suggested by a commentator writing in Belfast Telegraph, who observed, “Surely the Palestinian flag should be in Loyalist areas as a symbol of solidarity among both peoples who feel that they are being squeezed out of their lands” (2002a).
9. The survey is part of the Ark Project, an archive of social and political material relating to Northern Ireland established by Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster. The survey was set up in October 1998 and attempts to provide annual surveys of the views of people living in Northern Ireland on a range of social issues.
10. Such as in The Village, south Belfast, where Israeli flags are documented as appearing, “where Union Jacks are in plentiful supply, murals of William of Orange decorate gable walls, and the kerb stones are painted red, white and blue” (CitationTapper 2002).
11. To which is added, “Recently I heard an Ulster historian claim that the Israeli incursion into Palestine had been foretold by an Old Testament prophet.”
12. An assessment that has been repeatedly echoed; see for example Citation BBC News (2007).
13. Susan Willis has discussed the extra significance flags acquired in the wake of the September 11 attacks (2005: 13–27). The history of connections between the United States and the republican movement can be seen to have precluded loyalists making a more direct display of support for the War on Terror by flying the Stars and Stripes.
14. Though CitationFarrington (2006: 41) notes that unionist politicians did regularly travel to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, with the Ulster Unionist Party opening an office in 1995 in Washington, D.C. These low-level contacts might not have appeared to be of any great significance at the time, but their existence meant that unionists did have a network in place to capitalise on any change in mood in the United States toward Irish republicanism.
15. A certain paradox can be detected here. The desire to present republicanism as linked to Palestinian “terrorism,” with loyalists occupying a similar position to Israel in the War on Terror, is problematised if we pay heed to Chasdi's findings in his study of the first seventeen months of the second Intifada, that it is Israeli settlers who have been responsible for the highest number of acts of violence in the period (2004: 106). This is an assertion that echoes the fact that since the 1994 ceasefires the majority of paramilitary killings have been carried out by loyalist groups. Such an insight is perhaps of limited significance though in the context of a War on Terror, in which such data are seemingly less significant than whether a group appears “for” or “against” the United States.
16. The Loyalist Commission was established in 2001 as an umbrella body made up of members of paramilitary groups, clergymen, politicians, and community workers to represent loyalist concerns.
17. The use of the term “flagpole” here is somewhat perplexing and should perhaps be taken to mean any object on which a flag can readily be flown. An intra-loyalist “flag war” had erupted in Belfast in the summer of 2000, with UDA, UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters), and UVF flags festooning certain parts of the city (CitationMacGinty 2003). So much importance was attributed to the use of these flags as a precipitator of this feud that the UVF and UDA came to arrangement in 2001 over the display of each organisation's colours.
18. The assembly has reconvered as of May 2007.
19. The Parades Commission was established in 1998 to regulate parades in Northern Ireland.
20. It should be noted that there is no evidence of the appropriation of symbols from Northern Ireland in Israel-Palestine.
An Phoblacht/Republican News 2002. Flying the flag, 18 April.
Belfast Telegraph 2002. Tribal alliances know no bounds, 12 April.
Belfast Telegraph 2002a. O little town of Bethlehem . . . , 27 April.
Guardian, 2002. Riot City, 11 June.
Independent 2002. Raising the standards, 18 June.
Irish News 2002. Middle East flags raised in Belfast, 6 April.
Irish News 2002a. ‘Middle East flags unhelpful’, 11 May.
Irish News 2002b. Second act of IRA decommissioning views for space in international news, 10 April.
Irish News 2002c. ‘Republicans should have given weapons to Palestinians’, 10 April.
Irish News 2002d. Violence in south Belfast, 12 June.
Loyalist. 2002. What's in a flag?, July.
Loyalist. 2002a. Old friends show frustration with Sinn Féin, January.
Loyalist 2002b. Snubbing the largest democracy in the world, May.
News Letter 2002. Middle East tension unfurls on city streets, 6 April.
News Letter 2002a. IRA accused of being part of worldwide terror network, 25 April.
News Letter 2002b. September 11 response is turned on its head, 26 April.
News Letter 2002c. Palestine bombing skills ‘taught by IRA’, 29 April.
News Letter 2002d. Pawns in the game perhaps, but who makes the rules?, 25 April.
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