Palestinian women have long used tatreez as resistance. During the First Intifada, women responded to the Israeli occupation by embroidering explicitly nationalistic motifs onto their dresses using Palestinian flag colours: red, black, white, and green.1 Tatreez became a language of defiance, proving that Palestinian visual culture adapts while maintaining its resistant core. This tradition of combining traditional patterns with contemporary political expression established a precedent for using embroidery as an act of cultural sovereignty.
Intifada thobe featuring nationalistic motifs in Palestinian flag colors, late 20th century. Courtesy of the Textile Research Centre, Leiden.¹