  It is argued that the only three-flavor symmetry which is consistent with the
Okubo-Zweig-Iizuka (OZI) rule, and is therefore dictated by the gluon gauge
dynamics, is the heavy c quark limit of a certain U(4)_F subgroup (called S_OZI
here) and defined as S_OZI= \lim_(m_c\to \Lambda_c) SU(2)_ud * SU(2)_cd * U(1)
with the two SU(2) groups acting in turn onto the 1st and 2nd quark generations
rather than Gell-Mann's eightfold SU(3)_F. Within this scheme the presence of
non-strange quarkonium components in the wave function of the physical eta and
f_1(1285) mesons appears necessarily through the violation of the OZI rule for
the pseudoscalar and axial vector mesons by the anomalous axial U(1)_A baryon
number current and not by a primordial octet flavor symmetry. The physical
observable which selects the S_OZI over the SU(3)_F scheme is the
non-isotriplet part of the neutral axial current. In the case of the S_OZI
symmetry the only non-isotriplet neutral axial current having a well defined
chiral limit is purely strange, while within the SU(3)_F framework it is the
octet axial current which is supposed to be partially conserved. Accordingly,
while in the latter case the tree level eta N coupling is of significant
strength, its almost vanishes in the former, in agreement with data, thus
confirming the relevance of the S_OZI symmetry.
