On the Fast Day of the Tenth of Tevet we collectively recall the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans to starve the Jews and to drive them out of the Land of Israel.

Thousands of years later, on this same date, a dozen citizens of Gush Katif stood in front of the Knesset wearing a Star of David — colored orange, the Gush Katif color – similar to the yellow star, the symbol of the Holocaust.

Why are our Jews wearing the orange star that is so severely condemned by the media? Why would a group of Holocaust survivors agree to don this hateful symbol of their degradation? Why, indeed, is the star symbol being used? Surely these survivors, residents of Gush Katif, could have worn an orange square or rectangle to demonstrate their anger and despair at being, once again, expelled from their homes. For many it is their third expulsion – from Europe, from Yamit in Sinai, and now from Gush Katif. How do a husband and wife, in their eighties, with Auschwitz numbers on their arms express their recurring nightmare of being driven out? And this time the expulsion will include four generations: themselves, their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren – all residents of Gush Katif.

The imagery of the Holocaust has been used by the government of Israel since the beginning of its ‘disengagement’ campaign to terrorize the Jews of Gush Katif into submission.

Here is a short list of some of the rhetoric used by the Prime Minister’s Office:

  • The train of disengagement has left the station and cannot be stopped. [cattle cars moving inexorably to camps]
  • The Israeli soldier must “obey orders”. [they were only obeying orders…]
  • The Jews “will go quietly”. [Yonatan Bassi, head of the Expulsion Committee, the Judenrat]
  • “Soon Gaza will be free of Jews” (Judenrein). [Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz]
  • Homes and synagogues will be razed and destroyed. [Kristallnacht]
  • Internment camps are being made ready for those who refuse to leave willingly. [camps!]
  • The Jews will be “relocated”. [to the East?]
  • The area around Gush Katif will be isolated. Only residents will be allowed in. [Warsaw Ghetto]
  • All possessions of those who oppose the expulsion become State property. [confiscation]
  • Police who refuse to expel Jews will be fired. Soldiers will be court-martialed and imprisoned.

Listening to the PMO’s constant bombardment of threats and edicts is a lesson in Holocaust jargon.

Not Yad Vashem, the Simon Weisenthal Center, not one Knesset member nor newspaper has taken the PMO to task for their Holocaust imagery. Nor has there been an outcry over the deed to be perpetrated against our own people. Imagine the world outcry had this language been used against the Arab population. Recall the cries of dismay over the photograph of an Arab playing the violin at an army checkpoint. Would the government of Israel threaten to raze a mosque?

I listened to Holocaust survivor and former MK Shevach Weiss. He was horrified that Gush Katif residents had “desecrated” the memory of the Holocaust by wearing an orange Star of David.

Mr. Weiss, come to Gush Katif. Bring your grandchildren. Listen to the sound of exploding mortars and rockets. Had the Almighty not protected us we would have seen the butchery of the Jewish people – a mini-Holocaust. If you cannot come now, please be here to watch the Jewish families put onto trucks and carted away. Please be here and watch 21 synagogues burn to the ground.

Is it any wonder we are wearing the star?

Friends, wherever you are, wear something orange to show you identify with Gush Katif.

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