It must have been twenty years ago now when I first saw a young person in the West wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional headdress associated with Palestinian culture. As a Palestinian human rights activist, I thought to myself, “Does this young Westerner know the meaning behind that headscarf? Never mind,” I reckoned, “you can’t fight fashion.”

So – wtf is a keffiyeh? As the popularity of the keffiyeh in the West has soared in recent years, the meaning behind wearing a keffiyeh has blurred. The keffiyeh has a very specific political meaning, a violent one, linked to a series of terrorists with genocidal aspirations.

The origins of the keffiyeh are ancient. Similar headcoverings are also in use among many other Middle Eastern people. There is a well-known Jewish variant of this headscarf, called the sudra, that has existed for centuries. The modern-day Palestinian keffiyeh that has become trendy in the West has a specific history that connects it with the Arabs who crossed the Jordan as conquerors and colonizers during the Islamic conquests.

Do you know what a keffiyeh means, literally? The clue is in the name: keffiyeh is “of or pertaining to Kufa, Iraq,” a garrison city on the Euphrates founded by the second........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)