As the race is on to remove the Confederate battle flag from public view and pull it from store shelves and websites, in the heart of Washington flies a flag that seemingly upsets no one despite its bloody history and ongoing connection to violence.

Rightly or wrongly, the “Stars and Bars” is associated with ills of American slavery south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  No doubt the sight of it upsets and offends many.

Every now and then, a modern-day racist poses for a photo with this banner.  This was the case with accused mass-murderer Dylann Roof, who walked into a Charleston church this month and reportedly confessed to massacring nine congregants.  There have been other murders in the name of that flag and a plethora of domestic terrorism – all of it despicable.

Suddenly and swiftly, the Confederate battle flag is “radioactive.”

Meanwhile, flapping in the breeze above Wisconsin Avenue in D.C. is the PLO flag outside the offices of “the General Delegation of the PLO to the US” – just down the road from the official residence of the vice president of the United States.

The PLO flag represents some of the most savage and unconscionable attacks against civilians in all of the 20^th century – attacks that continue into this century.  The PLO and its member organizations, including Fatah, have murdered scores of Americans (and countless others) and have maimed hundreds more.  Among the victims have been Senator Robert F. Kennedy; U.S. ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel; and George Curtis Moore, charge d'affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.

Lists of attacks can be found here and here. 

Even more citizens of other countries – most of them Jews – have also been also murdered and mutilated by the PLO and its factions.

But this history did not prevent the Obama administration from authorizing the display of the PLO flag in our nation’s capital.  It went on display in January, 2011.

The PLO flag is every bit as racist as the Confederate battle flag.  It must come down.

One can see the PLO flag draping the coffins of the Palestinian-Arab terrorists who murdered three American citizens while they were worshipping at a synagogue in Jerusalem just last year.  

The PLO flag does not represent just some Arab fringe group.

“The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established in 1964 and has been the embodiment of the Palestinian national movement. It is a broad national front, or an umbrella organization, comprised of numerous organizations of the resistance movement, political parties, popular organizations, and independent personalities and figures from all sectors of life. The Arab Summit in 1974 recognized the PLO as the “sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” according to the website of the “Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations New York.” 

The PLO has slaughtered so many Americans, while meanwhile it is dedicated to the destruction of our ally Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish People.  It says so in its governing charter.

Article 9: “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine… The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it.”

The Obama administration should reverse course and revoke permission for this Palestinian-Arab flag to be displayed.  It should be removed from everywhere it is displayed.

Will we have to wait until the next mass murder of Americans or Jews for this symbol of hate and violence to come down?

 Steve Feldman is executive director of the Zionist Organization of America’s greater Philadelphia District.