The Palestinian Keffiyeh: Pattern, Heritage, and the Last Hirbawi Loom
Inside a small workshop on the southern edge of Hebron, a loom built in the 1960s is still weaving the keffiyeh (كوفية) the way it has been woven for over half a century. The Hirbawi factory is now the last place in Palestine producing a Palestinian-made keffiyeh. Almost every other keffiyeh sold in the world today, including most of those worn at solidarity marches, comes from Chinese mills.
This is the story of the cloth itself: where the patterns came from, what they mean, why the colors differ, and how a humble agricultural headwear became one of the most recognized symbols on earth. The keffiyeh sits at the center of FALASTIN's Symbols of Palestine T-Shirts collection, the same way it sits at the center of how Palestinians are seen.
A Cloth Older Than the Nation
TL;DR
The keffiyeh (كوفية), a checkered headscarf, became a symbol of Palestinian national identity in the 1936 to 1939 Arab Revolt, when Palestinian farmers and fighters wore it as a mark of resistance to British rule. Before that, it was a practical headcover worn by Palestinian farmers and villagers across the Levant. The black-and-white pattern most closely associated with Palestine (the shemagh weave) is produced commercially worldwide, but the last Palestinian-owned keffiyeh factory is the Hirbawi factory in Hebron, which has operated since 1961. The factory survived synthetic imports and political pressure, and remains the only keffiyeh manufacturer in the Palestinian territories. FALASTIN sources its keffiyehs from Hirbawi. The garment's global reach expanded significantly from 1969 onward when PLO leader Yasser Arafat made it a fixture of Palestinian political imagery worldwide.
Long before the keffiyeh became a symbol, it was a tool. Bedouin and Levantine fellahin (peasant farmers) wore it to keep the sun off their heads, the dust out of their mouths, and the wind off their necks. The cotton was light, the weave was breathable, and the cloth wrapped easily into a turban or fell straight as a hood. The keffiyeh existed in some form across the entire Arab world long before any of the modern countries did.
What made the Palestinian keffiyeh distinctive was the pattern, the colors, and the way it became, in the twentieth century, attached to a specific people.
The Patterns and What They Mean
Three motifs run through the classic Palestinian keffiyeh weave. The fishnet, a diagonal cross-hatched grid, is read as a reference to the Mediterranean and the Palestinian fishing tradition along the coast. The olive leaves, woven as small repeated branches, are read as a reference to the inland orchards and the rooted Palestinian agricultural life. The bold zigzag border stitches the two together, sometimes interpreted as the trade routes that connected coast and hill country, sometimes as the lines of Palestinian villages.
None of these meanings are written down in a single canonical document. They are oral, accumulated, contested in some details, and broadly accepted in their outlines. The keffiyeh, like the Palestinian key, is a symbol whose meaning has been handed down rather than authored.
Black-and-White vs Red-and-White
The most recognizable keffiyeh in the world is the Palestinian black-and-white. It is the version Yasser Arafat wore for fifty years; the version that shows up on protest banners; the version most people picture when they hear the word.
The red-and-white keffiyeh, also widely worn across the Levant, is associated more with Jordan and the Gulf states. The colors are not strict signifiers of nationality, and there is overlap, but to a Palestinian eye the black-and-white reads as the home version. In some accounts, the red-and-white was popularized by Jordanian Bedouin tribes and entered British military supply during the Mandate. The black-and-white stayed with the Palestinian fellahin.
The 1936 Revolt and the Keffiyeh as a National Symbol
Before 1936, the keffiyeh in Palestine was rural. It was what farmers wore. City men, especially in Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa, wore the tarbush (the red felt fez) under the late Ottoman and early Mandate eras.
The shift came during the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939, the three-year Palestinian uprising against British colonial rule. The revolt was organized largely from the rural areas, and rebel fighters wrapped their faces in the keffiyeh both for warmth and to hide their identities from British troops. To make it harder for the British to single out the rebels, the urban leadership of the revolt, especially in Nablus, called on city Palestinians to also wear the keffiyeh in solidarity. Within weeks, the rural cloth had become the national cloth. After the revolt ended, the symbolism stayed.
From there, the keffiyeh moved through the twentieth century with the Palestinian struggle. It was on Yasser Arafat's head when he addressed the United Nations in 1974. It is on the heads of Palestinian fishermen in Gaza, Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, and Palestinian students in diaspora cities from Montreal to Santiago.
The Hirbawi Factory
The Hirbawi factory was founded in 1961 by Yasser Hirbawi in Hebron. For decades, his looms produced thousands of keffiyehs a week. The cloth went to Jerusalem, Amman, Beirut, and through trade to the rest of the world. Hebron, which has been a craft city for centuries (the city's olive-oil soap is told in our Nablus piece; the glass-blowing and ceramics traditions there are equally old), suited the keffiyeh perfectly.
By the early 2000s, cheap Chinese imports had taken almost the entire global keffiyeh market. The Hirbawi factory nearly closed. It was kept alive by a renewed wave of demand from solidarity activists, diaspora communities, and the Hirbawi family's persistence. Today the factory still operates, with the original looms maintained by Yasser's sons, weaving the same fishnet, olive-leaf, and zigzag patterns. It is the only place in the world still making the Palestinian keffiyeh in Palestine.
For deeper reading, the Hirbawi factory's own site tells the family's history, and the Institute for Palestine Studies has academic context on the keffiyeh's role in twentieth-century Palestine. The story of the Palestinian orange sits in the same archive of Palestinian symbols carried forward by ordinary objects.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Palestinian keffiyeh?
The keffiyeh is a checkered cotton headscarf traditionally worn by Palestinian farmers and workers. The black-and-white pattern became a symbol of Palestinian national identity during the 1936 Arab Revolt. It was popularized internationally by PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who wore it consistently from 1969 onward. Today it is worn as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity worldwide.
What is the Hirbawi factory?
The Hirbawi factory in Hebron is the last Palestinian-owned keffiyeh manufacturer in the Palestinian territories. It has produced keffiyehs continuously since 1961. The factory survived competition from cheaper Chinese-manufactured imitations and remains the only producer of authentic Palestinian-made keffiyehs. Supporting Hirbawi is frequently cited as a way to ensure economic benefit reaches Palestinian producers directly.
What does the keffiyeh pattern mean?
The black-and-white fishnet and chain pattern of the Palestinian keffiyeh is said to represent Palestinian fishing nets and trade routes, though these attributions are primarily symbolic rather than documented historical fact. What is documented is the pattern's association with Palestinian nationalist identity since the 1936 revolt and its evolution into one of the most recognized political symbols globally by the 1970s.
At FALASTIN, we aim to keep that heritage alive through our Symbols of Palestine T-Shirts.
100% of profits from FALASTIN are donated to the United Palestinian Appeal.