In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine into two states, one the Jewish State of Israel and one proposed Arab Country of Palestine. When the neighboring Arab countries refused to accept the plan, the State of Israel proclaimed itself an independent nation in 1948. Since then, Israel has been in conflict with many of the neighboring Arab countries, resulting in several wars and decades of violence that continue to this day. In general, the Israeli have come out on top in each conflict.

Although this flag design dates back to the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1916, it was officially adopted as the flag of the Palestinian people by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964. In 2005, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) adopted the flag as the flag of the State of Palestine. Today, the flag is flown widely by Palestinians and their supporters.

Within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the boundaries of Palestine are subject to deep dispute. To the Palestinian people, the boundaries of Palestine are those made in the British Mandate of 1920–1948, excluding those of the Kingdom of Jordan, which became an independent Arab country in 1921. However, Israel conquered three-quarters of this territory by the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the remaining part, comprising the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, were first occupied by Egypt and Jordan, but later conquered by Israel during the Six Days War in 1967.

Since that time the question of establishing a "State of Palestine" with precise boundaries has been marred by periodic outbreaks of violence. In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords, signed by Yassir Arafat and then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington, managed to get an agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis. Israel would pull out of the Gaza Strip and cities in the West Bank, while leaving the contested East Jerusalem in Israeli control. In 2005, Israel did unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip as agreed in the "Disengagement Plan," and all the Israeli settlers were evacuated from the Gaza Strip. Control over the area was transferred to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) which was established to govern those areas from which Israel withdrew.

     
Other variant "Palestinian Protest flags" seen during political demonstrations
(Obviously, those written in English were designed to take advantage of western media coverage)

The first official national flag of modern Egypt was adopted by a Royal Decree of the Kingdom of Egypt in 1923, after Britain formally recognized Egyptian independence in 1922. It consisted of a white crescent with three white stars on a green background.

Following the 1952 revolution, the Egyptian Republic initially kept the green flag with the crescent and three stars of the kingdom, but later replaced it with a red-white-black horizontal tricolour with an eagle emblem in the white stripe, bearing a shield of the crescent and stars.

In 1958, the United Arab Republic, which comprised a merger of Syria and Egypt was founded. A red-white and black tricoloured flag with two green stars became the UAR flag. Egypt continued to use this flag until January 1, 1972, although the short-lived Egypt-Syria union saw its dissolution in 1961. The flag is still used as a national flag by Syria today.

United Arab Republic - Presidential Flags 1958-1972

The very first Presidential flag of Egypt and the United Arab Republic was the national flag of the U.A.R. charged with the new emblem "The eagle of Saladin" in the canton. Saladin is often hailed as a hero in the Arab world because he united so much of it in the late 12th Century and defended Islamic territories against the Crusaders. The "eagle of Saladin" has served at one time or another over the past fifty years as the basis for the arms of Lybia, Egypt, Yemens, Iraq, and Palestine, to name a few.

In 1972, Egypt, Syria, and Libya joined together calling themselves the Federation of Arab Republics. The flag of this new union was once again a red-white-black tricoloured flag with the golden "Hawk of Qureish," holding a scroll with the Arabic name of the Federation placed in the center.

The flag of Egypt in its current form was adopted on October 4, 1984. The flag of 1984 restored the top red stripe to the same red used in the United Arab Republic flag. The flag of 1972 had lightened the red color slightly. It depicts Egypt's national emblem, the Eagle of Saladin (a shield superimposed on a golden eagle facing the hoist side above a scroll bearing the name of the country in Arabic) centered in the white band of the three equal horizontal bands of red, white, and black.

The Lebanese flag is derived from the French tricolor. The cedar was placed in the white of the French flag. When Lebanon pronounced its independence, they got rid of the blue and made the stripes horizontal. The addition of a cedar tree can be easily explained because of the historical importance of the "Cedars of Lebanon" in near eastern history.

The national flag of Jordan is based on the flag of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The flag consists of three horizontal bands (black, white and green) that are all connected by a red triangle on the left edge. The horizontal colors stand for the Abbasid, Umayyad and Fatimid Caliphates. The red triangle is for the Hashemite dynasty and the Arab Revolt. The seven pointed star, which is the only feature that distinguishes Jordan's flag from that of Palestine, stands for the unity of the Arab peoples. The Kingdom of Jordan became an independent Arab country in 1921.

The first flag to be used by the Syrians, in 1920, was similar in color to the current flag of Jordan, but with the green and white colors reversed. The colors and design were taken from the Pan-Arab flag and inspired by the flag of the Arab Revolt. However, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire the French gained control of Syria until 1946 when Syria once again gained its independence. In 1946 Syria adopted this tricoloured flag with three green stars and used it until 1958 when they joined the United Arab Republic. It was briefly used again in 1961-1963.

The United Arab Republic flag was used by Syria between 1958-1961. In 1961, Syria broke the union with Egypt. Strangely enough, the old UAR flag was re-adopted in 1980 by Syria and became its current national flag.

In 1971, a red-white-black flag with a golden "Hawk of Qureish" holding a scroll with the Arabic name of the Federation of Arab Republics became the Syrian national flag. The Federation of Arab Republics consisted of Syria, Egypt and Libya.

The original flag of Iraq was adopted in 1921, when the country was formed as a monarchy. It was a black-white-green horizontal tricolour, with a red trapezoid (some variants have a triangle) extending from the mast side, inspired by the flag of the Arab Revolt. Two seven-pointed white stars on the triangle denoted the two principal peoples of the kingdom: the Arabs and the Kurds.

Following Abdul Karim Qassim's 1958 revolution that deposed the monarchy in 1959, Iraq adopted a new flag that consisted of a black-white-green vertical tricolour, and a red eight-pointed star with a yellow circle at its center in the middle white band. The black and green represented pan-Arabism, the yellow sun representing the Kurdish minority, while the red star of Ishtar represented the Assyrian minority. This version of the Iraqi national flag is currently allowed to be flown in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

After the Qassim government was overthrown, a new flag was adopted in 1963. The new flag had three stripes, of red, white, and black, with three green stars in the white stripe. The green stars were originally placed there for the proposed, but never-consummated, union of Iraq with Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic. By 1961, however, the Union between Syria and Egypt had already fallen apart.