I believe that the Palestinian flag should be added to the Asia 2 flag bundle. I will lay out my reasons below:
1. Relevance: As most people will know, there is a long-standing conflict over the political and humanitarian recognition of Palestine as a sovereign nation. Over the past 6+ months, an Israeli offensive of historic proportions has caused massive civilian deaths in the Gaza strip, acts which the overwhelming majority of human rights' charities, experts on war and genocide, and civilians on the ground have identified as war crimes with possible genocidal intent. It is therefore unsurprising that huge swathes of the populations of many nations have the desire to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, and the flag of that nation is the most direct way to do so. Of course, there are also many people who support the Israeli government's narrative of the conflict as a legal and defensible action. Because the Israeli flag pin is already present in the Asia 2 flag bundle, I feel that there is an imbalance in representation.
2. Precedent: There is a notable absence of the Russian flag in any of the flag pin bundles, and an emphasis of the Ukrainian flag at the top of the Europe bundle and as the icon for that bundle. I hazard to guess that this emphasis dates back to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in which case there is a precedent of allowing flag pins as a form of political speech by players. I note that despite the war in Ukraine being significantly longer than the potential genocide in Gaza, more than three times as many civilians have been killed in Gaza at the time of writing (and those are documented ones alone, likely an underestimate).
3. Geography: There are several countries represented by flag pins which have smaller populations or smaller land areas than Palestine, so I can only assume that relevance/requests are the main criteria.
Please let players show their support for Palestine in about the most chill way imagineable -- a flag pin! :)
1. Relevance: As most people will know, there is a long-standing conflict over the political and humanitarian recognition of Palestine as a sovereign nation. Over the past 6+ months, an Israeli offensive of historic proportions has caused massive civilian deaths in the Gaza strip, acts which the overwhelming majority of human rights' charities, experts on war and genocide, and civilians on the ground have identified as war crimes with possible genocidal intent. It is therefore unsurprising that huge swathes of the populations of many nations have the desire to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, and the flag of that nation is the most direct way to do so. Of course, there are also many people who support the Israeli government's narrative of the conflict as a legal and defensible action. Because the Israeli flag pin is already present in the Asia 2 flag bundle, I feel that there is an imbalance in representation.
2. Precedent: There is a notable absence of the Russian flag in any of the flag pin bundles, and an emphasis of the Ukrainian flag at the top of the Europe bundle and as the icon for that bundle. I hazard to guess that this emphasis dates back to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in which case there is a precedent of allowing flag pins as a form of political speech by players. I note that despite the war in Ukraine being significantly longer than the potential genocide in Gaza, more than three times as many civilians have been killed in Gaza at the time of writing (and those are documented ones alone, likely an underestimate).
3. Geography: There are several countries represented by flag pins which have smaller populations or smaller land areas than Palestine, so I can only assume that relevance/requests are the main criteria.
Please let players show their support for Palestine in about the most chill way imagineable -- a flag pin! :)