TA council member wants Arabic on city logo

Councilman Ahmed Mashrawi says motion would help correct historical slights against the city’s rich Arabic legacy.

By BEN HARTMAN
AHMED MASHRAWI 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Mashrawi PR)
AHMED MASHRAWI 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Mashrawi PR)
A Tel Aviv-Jaffa councilman will submit a motion to have the name of the city written in Arabic on the municipality’s flag, a move he said will increase Arab residents’ feeling of attachment to the city.
Councilman Ahmed Mashrawi said Thursday that at next Monday’s city council meeting he plans to present the motion, which he said would help correct what he called historical slights against the city’s rich Arabic legacy.
“When Tel Aviv and Jaffa were united in 1950 the political goal that stood behind this decision was the desire to erase all of the glorious Arab history in Jaffa. The Arab community of Jaffa is today a minority in the city but it has a glorious history in Jaffa and it is fitting that it be honored by putting the name in Arabic on the municipality logo,” Mashrawi said Thursday.
Last year, the Meretz city councilman pushed forward a plan that would give Arabic names to eight unnamed streets in Jaffa. Though nearly one-third of Jaffa’s 46,000 residents are Arabs, there are only a half a dozen streets named after Arab figures out of over 400 streets there, according to Mashrawi.
He said that changing the logo would mean that “Jaffa’s Arab residents would feel more connected to the symbols of the city and in particular the city flag which flies on Jewish holidays on the streets of Jaffa.”
“If the city of Tel Aviv unanimously supports this motion, it could have an effect on all of the cities in Israel which look towards Tel Aviv for inspiration,” Mashrawi said.