I agree with my fellow team, Hours (chief admin) has chimed in.
The flag represents the country they hail from and a view from there. I can see where the poster comes from, but us banning the flag will not change the fact the global community does recognise it, and also without national flags it would cause serious confusion on the board.
Of course the government of Pakistan does not recognise the state, but the government also doesn't run this forum, nor ever ran a forum for English speaking folks to express their views, hence the halfway house view we can have.
Official stand of Pakistan to deny the existence of Israel is emblematic. It merely speaks of Pakistan’s standing point on Palestine & Israel issue. And we certainly hold out the oppression of Israel against the Palestinians. However, we can NOT deny the fact, Israel is a country now. It is represented with its own flag. So this forum is open to audience from across the globe with no exceptions.
Pakistan's official stance is not that Israel is entirely composed of Palestinian territory occupied as such but is based on the fact that Israel occupies territories of palestine and needs to go back to the pre-1967 borders immediately and cease the human rights violations in the territory of palestine. The two stands are fundamentally different and while one may argue that Pakistan never recognized Israel even before 1967, however that remains irrelevant since Pakistan has cleared its stance. This was done alongside the palestinian stance which was done in 1988.
In 1988 the Palestinian national council, the legislative body of the Palestinian liberation organization passed the Palestinian declaration of independence with 253 in favor and 46 in against and 10 abstentions. This declaration would then be officially announced on 15th november 1988 by Yassir Arafat and as he would finish the reading he would assume the title of President of Palestine from his previous designation as Chairman of Palestine Liberation Organization which would be done officially through the Palestinian Central Council in April 1989. Now this is the official formation of the Palestine state which is recognized as such in the UN as well as by 71% of the member states of the UN amongst whom is Pakistan as well.
So the question is what were the borders of this new state? did palestine declare itself as the right and legitimate government of levant and Israel as a false government and false nation built on occupied lands? did they state as such and with that declare all territories under Israel as Palestine? Basically did they do what the OP is asking us to do?
No they did not. Infact they formulated their territories in their map as Gaza strip, the west bank and the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, which includes west Jerusalem. Not all of jerusalem but the western part of the divided jerusalem and it is in western jerusalem which holds our great sacred mosque. Now this independence was recognized in the UN resolution 43/177 on 15th december 1988. The most important part we need to understand is what Palestine claims and what recognition of palestine would inturn have us claim. In 1993 Palestine recognized the state of israel in line with the resolutions of 242 and 338 which dealt with the Israeli return to pre-war territories respectively where 242 deals with 1967 war and 338 deals with 1973 war and as you know that Israel has not returned West jerusalem nor has it returned the Golan heights. With this Palestine Liberation Organization, recognized as the legitimate representative of the people of palestine by the world ( even by those that dont recognize palestine) and this government of the state of Palestine,m recognized as the representative of the people of Palestine provided Dejure recognition to Israel and Israel in turn recognized PLO as the legitimate authority and representative of palestinians. Now Defacto recognition of a state is one which can be revoked under international law since the concept of Defacto recognition is that the state does not complete the essential requirements of statehood thus cannot be given dejure recognition but will be afforded with defacto recognition which can be removed. It is a custom based on factual situation on ground. Dejure recognition, on the other hand is permanent and is a legal act of lawful nature and its revocation can only happen in the even of absolute breakdown of a state to such a nature where the state ceases to function as a state. Examples of revocation of Dejure include Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. You know absolute breakdown.
So getting back, Palestine declares Israel as an official state and recognized its right to exist in peace which means that the territories of pre-1967 were no longer claimed by palestine and were now the legal and rightful territories of Israel. This was seen during the independence speech, Palestines recognition og resilution 242 and 338, the Oslo Accords and the Letters of recognition. Now if you were to read the letters of recognition then the letter sent by yasser arafat on 9th Septmeber contains the word '..The PLO recognizes the state of Israel and its right to exist peace and security. The PLO confirms to the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and 338.' All of these are counted in International law. Any state that would recognize palestine would also recognize the territorial limits of the state of Palestine. They can agree or disagree to the territorial claims of Palestine but they cannot go beyond those claims meaning that by recognizing palestine, we cannot say that all of levant is palestine if palestine itself says not all of levant but the territories we claim as such. Infact one can even argue that such recognition gives defacto recognition to Israel automatically and the aspect of non-recognition is purely the states own decision to not hold diplomatic relations. Not having diplomatic relations with a nations is not synonyms with non-recognition. This is getting way too legal so i am going to bring it back a bit and highlight that Pakistan. Pakistan recognized the state of Palestine on 16th November 1988 and by 1989, had opened full diplomatic relations between the two states.
So Pakistan recognized Palestine as the state based on the resolution 43/177 and has voted as such which means that Pakistan recognized the territorial limits of Palestine as stated by Palestinian government and the true representatives of the Palestinian people. So if they recognize Palestinian territorial limits then who governs the rest of the territory in the book of pakistan? Israel then? Its true that Pakistan does not have diplomatic relations with Israel however Pakistan through its actions and in its words ( spoken by Musharraf i believe and our Foreign office although they avoid this topic), does afford a form of lesser defacto recognition and has stated that the only problem between recognition of Israel is the borders of 1967 and the absolute independence of Palestine and human rights violations.
So if we remove the flag of israel then we are basically going against the Palestinian official stance as well as the official stance of Pakistan in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Israel’s treatment of Palestinians aside, their state exists now and we aren’t against the state itself, only it’s violation of Palestinian rights.
Absolutely and this has been the official state and unofficial state. It was Musharraf, where the prospects of Pakistan recognition of Israel were stated, if the two state solution is implemented and Palestine is not subjected to human rights violation. It was in 2006 that he stated that Pakistan will eventually recognize Israel and this will be post the establishment of an independent state of Palestine. The state exists and as i said above,m the existence of the state is given a form of lesser defacto recognition by Pakistan.
Either way removal of israeli flag is not the stance of Pakistan and should not be the stance of PDF as well. It is merely the misguided appeal of some posters.
