Before Watermelons It Was Oranges: Palestine’s Stolen Symbol
What fruit makes you think of Palestine?
We all probably would say the watermelon.
But it didn’t used to be this way. There was once an entirely different fruit the world associated with Palestine.
Here is how the Palestinian roots of this historic symbol were stolen by Zionist occupiers:
Since I joined the movement in late 2023, the 🍉 emoji’s symbolization of Palestinian national identity, resistance, and solidarity is all I’ve known.
To a lot of us whose activism bleeds into our online spaces, this was a symbolism forced onto us by the billionaire-owned media. The active suppression of messages explicitly mentioning Palestine or using their flag led the watermelon to proliferate the movement’s image online.
Yet the watermelon symbol goes way back to 1967. Following israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the israeli government banned the public display of the Palestinian flag.
Even artwork using the colors of the flag were considered illegal.
So in response, artists like Sliman Mansour began displaying/painting watermelons as subtle acts of defiance.
Gaza is was the perfect climate for growing rich, red watermelons which perfectly matched the colors of the flag.
The watermelon as a symbol faded slightly between the 1990s-2010s but has renewed itself in full force as an act of defiance against censorship and suppression that Palestinian imagery is subjected to in today’s online world.
It wasn’t always like this.
Once upon a time, Palestine used to be known for its oranges. Their agriculturalists cultivated groves all over the coast .
These oranges had been developed by Palestinian farmers in the mid-19th century in the Palestinian city of Jaffa.
Prized for being a delicious treat by the world and as a valuable export within Palestine, Jaffa Oranges were seedless, thick-skinned (ideal for exports), and incredibly sweet.
The export of Jaffa Oranges quickly became the backbone of Jaffa and the surrounding Palestinian towns. The iconic product was often packed in wooden crates that were stamped with the word “Jaffa”.
These oranges almost became Palestine’s national symbol, synonymous with Palestinian modernity, self-sufficiency, and contributing to Palestine a sense of national pride.
Pre-1948, both British and Zionist forces worked to undermine and suppress the Palestinian national identity. They targeted flags, political expression, cultural identity, and public symbols, all in an effort to subvert a unified Palestinian resistance to British rule and Zionist settler-colonial expansion. The British criminalized Palestinian political organizing, arresting and exiling their leaders while violently repressing demonstrations.
When Palestinians were imagining their national symbols in the 1920s-1940s oranges, olives, and native fruits were used in art and literature. Early nationalist art depicts oranges alongside flags, rifles, and the Dome of the Rock.
In 1929, the Palestinian newspaper ‘Filastin’ noted that there were two foreign flags being flown on their lands (British Empire & Zionist) yet the indigenous people had no flag. They asked people to send in proposals for a flag of Palestine.
Palestinian newspapers like ‘Filastin’ were frequently shut down, censored, fined and arrested for their nationalist activities.
You will see that the proposals often included orange motifs on top of the traditional Pan-Arab colors (black, red, green, white). Jaffa Oranges’ symbolism of Palestinian heritage and economic prosperity could very well have made it onto the official flag.
Unfortunately, the Jewish settlers in the First and Second Aliyahs (1880s-1920s) saw the citrus industry as a model for their own efforts.
Remember that at this point in Zionism’s colonization of Palestine, these initial Aliyahs arrived as a secular colonial movement.
The Second Aliyah was ideologically driven by socialist ideals. They brought with them this idea of “Hebrew Labor” a design meant to motivate Jewish settlers to work the land and drive the growth of their colonies. “Hebrew Labor” also meant excluding Palestinian labor to build a purely Jewish Labor economy. These ideas lay at the foundation of the kibbutz and Hashomer movements.
Over time, Jewish-owned orange groves increased, often competing with local Palestinian groves.
By the 1930s-1940s both Palestinians and Jews were exporting under the “Jaffa” brand, but Palestinians still cultivated the majority of groves.
When the Zionist settlers initiated the Nakba in 1948, their paramilitary terrorist groups (Irgun, Lehi, Haganah) carried out Plan Dalet (ethnic cleansing campaign) and a majority of Palestinians were displaced including most of Jaffa’s population.
The new state of israel quickly “nationalized” (stole) Palestinian land and groves under the “Absentees’ Property Law” in 1950.
During the same year, Zionists erased a depopulated Jaffa, renaming it Tel-Aviv. This was part of their systematic dearabization efforts to erase Palestinian ties to the land. Almost every town and street was renamed in post-1948 Palestine.
Side note about Tel-Aviv:
This is an iconic photo of Jewish Zionist settlers in the sand dunes just north of Jaffa in 1909 at the founding of Tel-Aviv. With this came the message, “A land without a people for a people without a land”.
But the photo is a lie.
If the photographer had only turned the camera behind him to the south, the thriving city of Jaffa would be laid out before the frame. In 1909 it’s population was between 40,000-50,000.
Hardly a land without a people.
The photo was a tool designed for Zionism’s colonial propaganda.
With the groves and land under their control, the Jaffa orange brand was then fully absorbed by the israeli government, who erased its Palestinian roots and marketed it globally as an israeli product.
In the 1950s-1980s, “Jaffa Oranges” became israel’s most famous export and was heavily promoted as a symbol of Zionist success and agricultural innovation.
Yet their only success was in stealing the work of Palestinian agriculturalists and driving them away from their groves.
Jaffa Oranges became Zionist propaganda, promoting a “desert blooming” narrative while ignoring the fact their groves were planted by Palestinians decades earlier.
israel’s appropriation of Jaffa Oranges complicated its continued use as a national symbol.
After the start of the Nakba in 1948, Palestinian symbols shifted towards themes of loss, resistance, and liberation. Olive trees and keys representing return and displacement overtook oranges as central motifs.
Oranges were almost cemented as a Palestinian national symbol and were seriously considered because they represented agricultural excellence, economic independence, and cultural pride. Even though they were appropriated by the Zionist occupiers they remain a powerful, unspoken emblem of what was taken by colonizers and what endures in Palestinian memory.
The appropriation of Palestinian symbols does not stop or start with Yaffa Oranges. Palestinian towns, foods, and even language are continually repurposed by Zionists as israeli identifiers, erasing their Palestinian roots.
Even the word “Sabra” (which you may recognize as this boycotted israeli brand) was used by Arabs for “prickly pear”.
Zionism is built on erasure, denial, and violent repression. The Zionist designers of the project of israel knew their strategy predicated these elements to achieve a Jewish ethnostate.
The “culture” of israeli society was formed from stolen pieces of the identity of indigenous Palestinians who they have always viewed as less than human.
Ironic, isn’t it. This cultural theft is a process that will continue as long as Zionism has its grips on power.
Free Palestine forever and always!
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2 great photos juxtaposed - the one punting the myth of the Jews on empty land, the other showing the flourishing Palestinian citrus hub.