There are moments when symbols connect events across time in ways no one could have predicted. In 2005, many Israelis wore orange to protest the immoral, disastrous Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Many of us warned that destroying the 21 Jewish communities of Gush Katif would bring death and destruction to Israel, not peace.
We pleaded with fellow Israelis, with our leaders, with those who lived on the Gaza border, with anyone who would listen. We cried out wherever we could that the Jewish communities in Gaza were not just homes in our ancestral homeland, they were also Israel’s first and immediate line of defense for all of Israel’s southern border communities.
Twenty years later I still carry the orange ribbon with me every day, a reminder of our protest, and as a symbol of our attempt to save Jewish Gaza in Gush Katif.
Our warnings were simply ignored in favor of a naive belief in “land for peace.” Jews were expelled from their Gaza communities, ignoring biblical ties and more recent history: Rabbi Yehuda Najara, 17th-century Chief Rabbi of Gaza City, wrote the traditional Friday night song “Ka Ribon Olam,” (Master of the Universe), sung by Jews the world over to this very day.
Just 18 years later came our most horrific nightmare: October 7, 2023, the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust—crimes against humanity perpetrated by our Islamist enemies in Gaza and supported by Shiite Iran, Sunni Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey.
Orange is the New Orange
And now, once again, the color orange returns as a symbolic reminder of Gaza. Only this time it has come to symbolize something even more tragic.
The world came to know the sweet “gingey” (redhead) boys, Ariel and Kfir Bibas—ages 4 and 9 months — as their kidnap was broadcast around the globe. Their flaming orange hair became a haunting symbol of stolen innocence. The boys were taken from their home in the arms of their mother, Shiri, and their father, Yarden, was brutally beaten. The Bibas family was taken hostage by the very people who have used Gaza for terror since the 2005 expulsion.
After Yarden was released three weeks ago, Shiri, Ariel and Kfir also returned—in coffins.
An Inhuman and Relentless Cruelty that Knows No Bounds
Hamas staged a hideously choreographed “ceremony,” parading coffins of these innocent children, their mother, and 83-year-old Oded Lishitz for “innocent” Gazans to witness. Israel sent a bomb squad to ensure the coffins weren’t rigged with explosives. Hamas reportedly handed over locked coffins with keys that didn’t work —another level of psychological torture.
Hamas took every opportunity to maximize the suffering of the Jewish people. We are dealing with barbaric monsters, who butchered, raped, burned, and tortured Jews on October 7th.
In yet another level of depravity, each coffin was marked with “Date of Arrest: October 7.”
All presented to the celebratory cries of both armed and non-combatant Gazans. “Ordinary, innocent civilians” who brought their children to watch babies being returned in coffins.
Who’s That Knocking at Your Door?
This is the Islamist enemy the world must start waking up to, whose very existence endangers all freedom-loving people. This is NOT a resistance, religious movement, or nationalist movement. This is a genocidal jihadist Islamic death cult that revels in cruelty.
And it is one that doesn’t only exist in Gaza. Look around. This ideology is deeply embedded across the Middle East, and Africa, and in every single Western country around the world that opened their doors to mass immigration from Muslim countries. It is the ideology that is marching in your streets, infiltrating your institutions, radicalizing university students and educational institutions.
Lesson Learned
The entire country is grieving for the Bibas family, for the sweet orange-haired boys who should have been running free, laughing, playing, and growing up with love. Instead, they were taken into the dark abyss of Gaza along with their beautiful mother, all murdered by the very monsters too many still refuse to condemn.
After mourning comes action, the lesson of 2005 must not be ignored again. The expulsion of Jews from our land only led to bloodshed. Ceding Jewish territory only led to terror.
We will never again repeat that mistake. We rectify it by taking back our land, making the Jewish State of Israel bigger and bigger to protect ourselves and the minorities around us from this evil Islamist enemy.
For the sake of Kfir, Ariel, and Shiri, and their father Yarden, who buried his family today; for the thousands of victims of October 7; and for the security of the Jewish people: we must erase the Islamists in Gaza, retake control of our land, and ensure that Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and the Islamist Iranian regime pay a price so steep that they never entertain the thought of raising so much as a pinky to harm a Jew ever again.
Peace through strength is how you bring peace to a region plagued by evil.
Orange is no longer just the color of warning. It is now the color of our resolve.
Never again. Am Yisrael Chai!
