Why can Heathrow Arab-language staff wear flags of Palestine while on duty?

And why is the ‘flag of Palestine’ chosen as the badge to be worn by Arabic speakers from twenty-two different countries?

By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine

The Arabic-speaking staff at Heathrow has for months been wearing a new badge. Instead of simply stating that they are speakers of Arabic (and can thus help passengers who need interpreting services), that badge shows the flag of “Palestine.”

This has caused quite a furor, about which you can find more here:

“Heathrow staff are allowed to wear Palestine flag badges because it tells travellers they can speak Arabic, airport bosses tell angry Jewish passenger,” by Emily Jane Davies, Daily Mail, June 30, 2024:

Heathrow staff are allowed to wear Palestine flag badges because it illustrates that they can speak Arabic, the airport bosses have told an angry Jewish passenger.

On May 26, a Jewish passenger had his bag pulled for an extra security check by a female worker wearing one of the badges.

Isn’t it obvious that this extra security check of a Jewish passenger was prompted by animus, felt by a supporter of Palestine — wearing her Palestine flag badge makes that clear — who wished to make difficulties for that passenger, at the very least by causing unnecessary delays in his travels?

And while staff at the airport aren’t allowed to wear political or religious items, the passenger was told the badge was an exception to this rule.

The Palestine flag is clearly a political item; wearing it violates the rules prohibiting public employees in the UK from wearing such items.

This is because it was used to ‘indicate an employee speaks a particular language or dialect from a certain region’, according to The Telegraph.

So the best way for an employee to semaphore to travelers his ability to speak Arabic is by wearing a badge displaying the flag of Palestine?

If so, why not require speakers of other languages on the Heathrow staff to wear the flags of their respective countries, as being “easier to see” than a statement that “I speak language X”?

But none of them do. Surely the best, simplest, apolitical way to signal that “I speak Arabic” would for the Arabic-language speakers on staff to go back to wearing a sign saying exactly that, in bold white letters on a green (the color of Islam) background?

That makes a linguistic statement, not a controversial political one.

This [complaint from a Jewish passenger about being subject to a deliberately lengthy examination of his luggage by a supporter of Palestine] comes after the Home Office professional standards unit began an investigation into a complaint that Heathrow Border Force staff ‘harassed’ Israeli passengers arriving in the UK.

Passengers complained that they were targeted after staff noticed the Israeli flag on their luggage and were ‘shunted’ into a separate room.

When passengers asked why they were being treated differently, staff reportedly told them that as customs officials they could do whatever they wanted.

No, these customs officials are not allowed to treat different nationalities and ethnicities differently. This violates British law.

And tests can be conducted, where British investigators feign entry into the country — from Israel or elsewhere — carrying suitcases marked with Israeli insignia, to record how they are treated by customs officials.

It will soon become clear if those who appear to be Israelis receive unusual levels of discomfiting scrutiny.

After the passenger complained about the flag badge, Heathrow’s passenger customer support department replied: ‘If a person speaks a language or dialect from a certain region as a secondary/tertiary language, a flag representing the region or country would be present which is provided by Heathrow.’

But why is the “flag of Palestine” chosen as the badge to be worn by Arabic speakers from twenty-two different countries?

Why should the flag of “Palestine” — which is still not a state recognized by the UK — be chosen to signal “I am a speaker of Arabic,” instead of, say, the flag of the most populous Arabic-speaking state, Egypt?

Or why not do as all the other interpreters available to passengers at Heathrow do, and simply have a badge that says “I speak (your language here),” without any political statement?

The Telegraph reported the letter as saying: ‘The flag is used to be more easily identifiable from a distance.’

This is implausible as the reason for the Palestine flag badge. Visibility of the sign in the terminal depends on the size, colors, and contents of the sign.

Not every Arabic-speaking passenger will necessarily recognize the flag of Palestine, but all of them will recognize, on the badge these staff members should be wearing — and had been wearing for years — large Arabic letters spelling out “I speak Arabic.”

But a spokesperson from UK Lawyers for Israel told the newspaper that passengers would assume staff were Palestine supporters amid the conflict in Gaza.

It would be natural for Jewish passengers, and non-Jews who support Israel, to assume that someone wearing a Palestine flag supports the “cause of Palestine,” which in these fraught times means support for the terror group Hamas, now locked in a war with Israel in Gaza, and very likely support the Hamas goal of replacing Israel “from the river to the sea” with a 23rd Arab state.

They said it creates an ‘intimidating, hostile, and offensive environment for Jews and Israel supporters’….

This comes after two survivors of the October 7 attacks were dealt with aggressively by UK Border Force after they had travelled to the UK to raise awareness for a not-for-profit organisation they established to help survivors of the terror attacks….

Putting aside the singling out of Israeli passenger from all others, shunting them to a separate room, and aggressively questioning them about their purpose in entering to the UK, as well as subjecting their luggage to extra searches, let’s just stick to Heathrow’s allowing, in defiance of the law, Arabic-speakers on its staff to wear, as their badge identifying their linguistic role, the flag of Palestine.

This violates British law; state employees are not permitted to display political affiliations.

The supposed reason was because the flag badge was claimed to be more visible than badges simply stating in Arabic “I am an Arabic speaker.”

But if that were so, why haven’t any of the speakers of numerous languages on the Heathrow staff chosen to wear the flags of their nations?

You can imagine the mess: the Taiwanese interpreter wearing the Taiwanese flag, while the interpreter from mainland China would have the flag of Communist China as his badge.

Or the various native speakers of English, instead of simply having a badge announcing “I speak English,” might have badges variously displaying the flags of the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.

That way madness lies.

The only rational approach is to have each interpreter identify the language he (or she) speaks, and not the country he (or she) comes from, identifies with, or wants you to support.

No politics, please, and that means no “flag of Palestine.” Put those badges In the trash can – the trash can of history will be along any minute now — right here.

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