Orange

If you've been to Jerusalem in the past few weeks, then you've noticed something that resembles road construction. There's orange everywhere. Orange ribbons, orange shirts, orange bracelets, and then to top it off - an annoying slogan that says "Jews don't expel Jews" in orange writing. I guess none of it is actually that hard to notice but one thing that does seem to be sparse are the blue and white ribbons that are a little more popular in my neighborhood.


Now about that slogan. If they really want to convince other people (me) that disengagement is bad, then they should focus on more convincing slogans like: "Don't reward terrorists with the Gaza strip" or "Giving up Gaza is Giving up Security" or whatever, you get the point. But even those reasons for not disengaging are weak. First, staying in Gaza creates a demographic, economic, and security nightmare. But then there are those who worry about unilateral withdrawal compared to the typically more favorable withdrawal as an outcome of negotiations. It's always funny to me that people think that we are sending the wrong message by not negotiating with them. That we are giving in to their brutality. But if you think about it, negotiating with them has the same effect. When we negotiate with the Arabs we always ask for peace in exchange for land. Isn't that the same thing? If you stop killing us then we will give you stuff? At least this time we are calling the shots.

Anyway, I was in the Old City last night. While approaching the Kotel I noticed a tent surrounded by an unusual amount of orange.


(click pictures to enlarge)







Then I looked to my right and there was some more orange.




As I kept walking I heard someone speaking loudly in English on their cell phone. I continued towards the Kotel, and to my left I found the facilitator of this orange affair. An American dressed completely in orange. It looked funny at the time so I took some pictures.