About our Logo

Like everything else in Israel-Palestine, even fruit can become a battle ground.

Take the watermelon, that sweet miracle of Mediterranean summer. It is widely used as a symbol for the Palestinian flag online, as the emoji shares the same colours- black, red, white and green. 

In Israel, where displaying the Palestinian flag is illegal, demonstrators who took to the streets wearing T-shirts with a watermelon printed on them were often approached by the Israeli police, with any watermelon paraphernalia confiscated. 

One of the more absurd images of this otherwise tragic and soul-destroying conflict was a photo of an Israeli police officer holding a confiscated hand painted watermelon placard.

The Cactus is also not free of controversy. Once upon a time it was used quite commonly as a symbol for the new Jewish settlers- supposedly prickly on the outside and sweet on the inside, like the fruit itself. Sabra, the Hebrew word for the fruit, was for a time widespread in Hebrew parlance as signifying a Jew who was born in the land, and therefore native to it. At the same time, the Cactus fruit is also connected to Palestinian struggle - the Arabic word for the fruit, Sabr, also means patience, and Sabr wa Sumud, patience and steadfastness, is a well known mantra of the Palestinian resistance. 

Perhaps interestingly, in the argument over who owns both fruit and symbol the fact that the fruit itself is not an ancient native of the land is often forgotten. The cactus and its fruit arrived from the Americas via Spain only several centuries ago.

Our logo aims to combine together the cactus and the watermelon as a reminder that fruit is much better shared rather than fought over. We'd like to unite people of all nations, and especially Israelis and Palestinians, around the hope that a peaceful co-existence free of violence and free of racism is possible.