How keffiyehs and watermelon swim bags became middle-class terror chic

Etsy has nearly 1,000 results for “keffiyeh tote bag”. I have seen keffiyeh phone cases, backpacks, trainers, trousers, dresses, head-wraps and more. Greta Thunberg was barely discernible through the thicket of black and white on her flotilla.

There have been innovations in the pro-Palestine look too, especially involving the black, red and green of the flag (yet another unfortunate colour combination, like Christmas gone wrong). At last year’s Cannes festival, Cate Blanchett wore a dress with a Palestinian flag train. Red, green and black was the colour scheme of the campus encampments, of course, as well as symbols such as the bird on the olive tree, which also has a bit of black and white lattice for good measure. Then there is the newfound acceptability of the shockingly explicit bit of genocide porn that is the whole map of Israel in the colours of the Palestinian flag: white and blue done over in red, green and black.

The watermelon is a relatively novel symbol, until recently not widely used by your average progressive on the streets of London or Brooklyn. You see, watermelons have black seeds, red/pink flesh and green skin. Bingo!

Sartorially, the dominance of these symbols makes for some weird experiences. Keffiyehs are fairly commonplace at the ponds on Hampstead Heath, where I am a regular. But even I was taken aback at the Mixed Pond when the white, nose-ringed woman changing on the bench next to me sported a necklace with a pendant in the shape of Israel painted black, green and red, plain as day. While I was digesting the affront that this represented, my eye fell on her enormous watermelon swim bag.

What was eerie about this woman was the totality of her passion. It is very unlikely that she had any blood ties to the Middle East but she clearly felt complete identification with the Palestinian cause – a perpetually violent one, and currently spearheaded by a group dedicated to wiping out Israel. Anti-racism and social justice are causes that resonate naturally in Western societies. But “freeing Palestine from the river to the sea” is a far less obvious world-view defining issue for an evidently middle-class English woman who likes a swim on Hampstead Heath.

Unless, of course, we explain it through the eternal lens of antisemitism, one of whose defining features is that it is not just a prejudice or a view, but a worldview. It is for this reason that even countries that have never had a Jewish population or any encounters with Jews at all, such as North Korea, will still spit antisemitic poison and revile “the Zionists”.

It must have been just as obscene – but far scarier – for Jews in Europe in the 1930s to see the symbols of Nazism in equally pleasant settings, from shopping emporia to chamber music concerts. I thought of their experience, and the boycotting not only of Jews but of Jewish money, at the Queen’s Park farmers market recently. I hadn’t gone for a while, and this time the place was awash in Palestine garb. I saw customers aplenty boldly sporting red and white and black and white keffiyehs as they bought their organic sides of beef and oysters; one woman, who looked Middle Eastern, had her hair held back in a keffiyeh and a necklace whose charm was a pretty heart that incongruously read “Free Palestine”. She seemed to be taking a break from the resistance to buy a loaf of kimchi focaccia.

What I found more surprising was the presence of vendors wearing the keffiyeh. Like Hampstead, Queen’s Park also has a significant Jewish community, as does all of north-west London. This isn’t Tower Hamlets. And yet the vendors were making clear that there were sides, and they were on the one that includes people who want to get rid of Israel – and if that means alienating, offending or upsetting most Jewish customers, so be it. Free Palestine!

We are all used to people wearing this particular combination of ignorance, stupidity and hostility with brazen confidence, but there was something about seeing these vendors send the message that even in the domain of commerce, Palestine reigned. I felt that my Jewish/Zionist money was not wanted, or valued. Which was a shame, as I really like the wild honey they were selling.

The rise and spread of the watermelon, the keffiyeh, the black, green and red map of Israel, of slogans such as “from the river to the sea” shows how deeply destructive ideas can ride into the mainstream atop silly and trivial bits and pieces of personal gear. I am often told not to pick fights with these people, or that the keffiyeh itself isn’t necessarily a sign of support for Hamas or being anti-Israel. But we all know that’s not true, not any more.

Still, in the interests of personal peace, I try to remember that if sticks and stones can’t break my bones, neither can watermelons and pendants. At least, not yet.