My favorite stamp collecting theme is Arab philatelic propaganda against Israel and there is a lot of material out there. I have shown some of the items on this blog. I have provided many lectures on this issue and written many articles.
Today I would like to highlight one specific stamp, because it shows the issue quite vividly. I have spoken about this stamp briefly but one of my readers asked for it in more details.
Having been to Jerusalem many times, I can honestly tell you that there is no way that a tank can get to the Temple Mount, unless it was dismantled and carried piece by piece up and put back together. Before they managed to do this, they would have been lynched. No Israeli government would allow that. But let us assume that this is for graphical effect (Propaganda effect), it does get the point across. The boy throwing the rock at the tank is another propaganda issues. A rock thrown at a tank will not even dent the armor, that is why there is armor. The point of this image is merely to bring back memories of the 1988 Chinese Tiananmen Square issue.
The background of the stamp is black and that is the symbol of death! We see barbed wire in red, the color of blood, which is new but the barbed wire is a common motif in Arab stamps depicting Jerusalem, it is to symbolize that Jerusalem is a prisoner and must be liberated. This imagery was sparked by Iran when they nominated the last Friday of Ramadan as the day for liberation of Israel.
But the past part is the blood dripping from the top. Not sure how that fits into the point that the Oman designer was trying to get across unless he was trying to say that a lot of blood was spilled. But it really adds to the beautiful gruesomeness of this issue.
This stamp is in my collection, but not in my exhibit, yet it is one of my favorite stamps. ..
Today I would like to highlight one specific stamp, because it shows the issue quite vividly. I have spoken about this stamp briefly but one of my readers asked for it in more details.
The stamp (souvenir sheet) was issued by Oman in 2001 for the Al Aqsa Uprising, commonly known as the Second Intifada. An Intifada is an Arabic word for an uprising of the people. The white Arabic writing on the right says Intifada.
We see a child throwing a rock at a tank, which is presumably an Israeli tank as this took place in Israel. The mosque on the right, is not the Al Aksa Mosque but the Dome of the Rock. The Al Aksa Mosque is a few hundred meters away. This is actually a common error in the news when they display this mosque. Check this out: Oh Malaysia.
We see a child throwing a rock at a tank, which is presumably an Israeli tank as this took place in Israel. The mosque on the right, is not the Al Aksa Mosque but the Dome of the Rock. The Al Aksa Mosque is a few hundred meters away. This is actually a common error in the news when they display this mosque. Check this out: Oh Malaysia.
Having been to Jerusalem many times, I can honestly tell you that there is no way that a tank can get to the Temple Mount, unless it was dismantled and carried piece by piece up and put back together. Before they managed to do this, they would have been lynched. No Israeli government would allow that. But let us assume that this is for graphical effect (Propaganda effect), it does get the point across. The boy throwing the rock at the tank is another propaganda issues. A rock thrown at a tank will not even dent the armor, that is why there is armor. The point of this image is merely to bring back memories of the 1988 Chinese Tiananmen Square issue.
The background of the stamp is black and that is the symbol of death! We see barbed wire in red, the color of blood, which is new but the barbed wire is a common motif in Arab stamps depicting Jerusalem, it is to symbolize that Jerusalem is a prisoner and must be liberated. This imagery was sparked by Iran when they nominated the last Friday of Ramadan as the day for liberation of Israel.
But the past part is the blood dripping from the top. Not sure how that fits into the point that the Oman designer was trying to get across unless he was trying to say that a lot of blood was spilled. But it really adds to the beautiful gruesomeness of this issue.
This stamp is in my collection, but not in my exhibit, yet it is one of my favorite stamps. ..
