The Orange Star

Published on January 3, 2005

“‘We had to use the heaviest tools we had in order to shock the State of Israel. As someone said to me, we had to make people understand that this is a case of ethnic cleansing.'” Ronny Bakshi, a teacher in Gaza, talks to Haaretz’s Asaf Carmel about his Orange Star protest initiative, wherein Gaza settlers don an […]

“‘We had to use the heaviest tools we had in order to shock the State of Israel. As someone said to me, we had to make people understand that this is a case of ethnic cleansing.'” Ronny Bakshi, a teacher in Gaza, talks to Haaretz’s Asaf Carmel about his Orange Star protest initiative, wherein Gaza settlers don an orange Star of David, like the yellow patches forced on Jews during the Holocaust, to protest the Israeli government’s plans to withdraw from the settlements. Originally, the protest was to begin on a fast day dedicated to the dead, and the stars were to be publically unveiled by 10 Holocaust survivors, but a local TV station broke the story early, bringing a wave of criticism from politicians and the media. Nonetheless, the orange Stars of David are much in demand, and the residents of Gush Katif have had to bolster their meager supply of stickers with homemade stars cut from orange construction paper. Bakshi, who counts himself a religious radical and claims that secularists — even secularists living in the Gaza Strip — are “‘incapable of understanding the pain of those who will leave here,'” also spoke of his final plan against the withdrawal: thousands of Israeli soldiers leaving the army on the eve of disengagement. “‘Our public has nothing left in common with this country.'”

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