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A few days ago, the Knesset voted in favour of PM Sharon's
disengagement plan. For those who are not updated on Middle East
politics, the plan includes evacuating of the Israeli settlements
in the Gaza Strip.
While discussing the issue there was a demonstration against the
plan. The demonstrators used orange flags charged with blue Magen
David and inscriptions above and below it. I noticed two
variants: Yehuda/VeHashomron (Judea/and
Simaria) and Gush Qatif/Lanetzkh Nenatzeakh (Qatif Block/Forever
we will
win) but there could be also others.
Photos at
www.ynet.co.il.
Dov Gutterman, 30 October 2004
In the photo, most demonstrators can be seen wearing
orange t-shirts. Does the use of the color orange in both the
flag and the clothing have any particular meaning?
Thorsten, 30 October 2004
It is used, probably, because it doesn't represent any political
party. I don't know of any other particular meaning.
Dov Gutterman, 30 October 2004
Orange has been chosen as a color symbolizing solidarity with
the settlers in Gaza, worn as the color of caps, t-shirts, etc.
Nathan Lamm, 30 October 2004
The settlers who are against PM Sharon plan to evacuate Gaza
strip, choose the orange as their color. During a demonstration
in Jerusalem yesterday, one could see many national flags with orange
instead of white.
Source:
www.ynet.co.il
Dov Gutterman, 31 January 2005
One thing I've noticed looking at the crowd was that none of
those were actual cloth flags, they all appear to have been
printed on some sort of stiff material. I guess it make it easier
to display in low wind condition.
Marc Pasquin, 31 January 2005
![[Disengagement plan protest flag]](../images/i/il_gkands.gif)
image by Santiago Tazon
The flag of such movement was a six-pointed star (Magen David)
in blue, two parallel lines also in blue (wider than the lines of
the national flag) over an orange background with some words in
Hebrew. I saw this flag in some windows, balconies and cars.
The orange pro-settlers groups were distributing orange strips in
crossways. They also sell this flags for 5 NIS.
The Hebrew words could be: "Gush Katif" or "Yehuda
VeShomeron".
Supporters of the Disengagement Plan started to use blue strips
but only few of them used it.
Santiago Tazón, 5 September 2005
I saw a photo by Baz Ratner/AP that made front page in the
PUBLICO newspaper at August 14, 2005. It shows a flag which I
also saw on TV waved by Gaza settlers, or at least militants
against the Gaza retreat.
Modeled after the Israeli national flag, it's orange in colour
with two very narrow blue horizontal stripes above and below a
Magen David, also blue (and clearly outlined in black in the
original photo), and inscriptions in Hebrew above the upper
stripe and below the lower stripe. Unfortunately, the photo only
captures the central part of the flag and most of the writing
becomes unreadable.
Jorge Candeias, 8 January 2007
Jewish settlements have been present in Gaza City for many centuries, which were evacuated following riots in 1929. After the Six-Day War (1967), Jewish communities weren't built in Gaza City, but in Gush Katif in the southwestern part of the Gaza Strip, i.e. Kfar Darom ñ established in 1946, evacuated in 1948 after an Egyptian attack, resettled in 1970, to be evacuated again in 2005 as part of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Intention to establish a regional council for the settlements in the Gaza
Strip and the Sinai Peninsula (after the occupation of these territories by
Israel following the Six-Day War) arose in the early days of the establishment
of Nahal settlements in the area, but it fell out of favor after it became
apparent that the Ministry of Interior would not be able to work with the
council areas and the Ministry of Defense did not want to bear the costs. The
Regional Council was established on May 10, 1979 (although
another
source mentions 1978), by order of the
IDF) local commander. By the time "(The) Disengagement Plan", formally the "Disengagement Plan Implementation
Law") on February 18, 2005 was passed by the Knesset in 2004, in a Bill
originally passed by the Ministry of Justice, and it was ruled that on the
day of the evacuation of the last locality from the Gaza Strip, the Regional
Council would cease to operate. In practice, the Council ceased to operate on
August 15, 2005, with the evacuation of the first locality (August 14 was the
deadline for local residents to be in the area although the IDF eventually
allowed until August 17 for the
complete evacuation), while evacuation of IDF
forces was effective on September 11, 2005 (in Gaza) and on September 22,
2005 (in the West Bank). The evacuation was done by the SELA), Assistance to the Settlers of
Gaza and Northern Samaria), which existed in the 2006-2013 period, to oversee
the whole operation, including compensation, assistance, relocation, among
other activities. The Council at its peak (on the eve of the evacuation)
included 8,900 residents in 21 localities. Most of the residents worked in
agriculture, industry and education.
Right after the Israeli 2003 elections, a unilateral withdrawal plan was
devised by Israeli authorities, that was in line with what was to become the
"Roadmap for Peace" a plan to resolve the IsraeliñPalestinian conflict proposed
by the Quartet on the Middle East (a political and diplomatic group that was
established in Madrid in 2002). The final text was released on April 30, 2003.
The process reached a deadlock early in phase I and the plan was never
implemented. This was in the midst of important geopolitical events such as the
Al-Aqsa (Second) Intifada (2000-2005), the War on Terror (2001-onwards) and
Operation Defensive Shield (2002).
In December of 2003 the idea of a
unilateral withdrawal was being discussed. with some modifications in February
and April of 2004, to be up for a vote (some sort of Likud Party internal
referendum) on May 2, 2004, in which the Prime Minister's plan for unilateral
withdrawal is defeated by a 60%-40% margin.
Protests against the disengagement plan began long before the disengagement
plan was approved by the Knesset. Some of the earliest protests were to create a
human chain along the 90 km from Gush Katif to Jerusalem, on July 25, 2004, near
Tisha B'Av. With the approval of the preparations for the plan in the Knesset on
October 26, 2004 by a 67-45 majority vote, 7 abstentions, and 1 member absent
(for the proposal, but not for its actual implementation), the wave of protests
intensified, and they continued to scale up as the deadline approached. On
February 16, 2005 parallel to this, the Parliament approved the
Evacuation-Compensation Law with 59 votes in favor, 40 opposed, 5 abstaining, to
provide assistance to the would-be displaced communities. A proposed amendment
to submit the plan to a referendum was rejected, 29ñ72. It seems that the
protest against the program, which was symbolized in orange, was among the most
powerful in the history of Israeli democracy, especially the demonstrations and
protests that took place on August 11, 2005, just four days short of the
deadline for unilateral withdrawal. One of the most notorious group of
protesters to use such color was the Student Cell Against the Disengagement,
shortened to Orange cell), which was a right-wing student organization from the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem that emerged in 2004. Another relevant
organization in the protest was the National Home which is an organization
established with the aim of channeling the forces working against the
disengagement plan.
Although opponents of the plan were secular and
ultra-Orthodox, the protesting majority belonged overwhelmingly to the
National-religious, a stream of Judaism combining a practice quite similar to
that of modern Orthodox Judaism with a Zionist ideology reinterpreted through
traditional Jewish heritage (Torah, Talmud, etc.). The opposition stemmed
primarily from religious motives and their belief that the State of Israel's
hold on the Land of Israel and that it has religious significance and is part of
the redemption process. Other concerns were based on security reasons, which
expressed the possibility of this territory to be occupied by armed
organizations, which indeed happened a couple years later, specifically when
Hamas took over the Gaza Strip between June 12-14, 2007 in an internal
Palestinian power struggle against its rival faction Fatah."
Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2989783.stm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Quartet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartet_on_the_Middle_East
https://news.walla.co.il/item/699863
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_map_for_peace
http://maarachot.idf.il/PDF/FILES/7/110647.pdf
http://www.myesha.org.il/_Uploads/dbsAttachedFiles/hoveretweb.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Katif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katif_(moshav)
Several flags were
spotted back then, with the most prominent being the
ones representing the settlements in Gush Katif and Samaria and also the Regional Council of Hof Azza (not a government
authority, but a popular initiative for self-rule).
Esteban Rivera,
29 July 2020
![[Disengagement plan protest flag]](../images/i/il_gkands4.jpg)
image located by Esteban Rivera
This cropped image of the original, located here:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3613/1194/1600/muqataflag1.jpg (source,
picture taken on October 23, 2005). It is like the Israeli flag, but gold instead of blue
(with the Star of David not being the usual outline, but rather fully
colored), and black instead of white, as solidarity with the people being
displaced (notice that in the picture one can also see the orange protest
flag in the background).
Esteban Rivera, 29 July
2020
![["Gush Kativ" protest flag]](../images/i/il_gkands2.jpg)
image located by Esteban Rivera
The flag is an orange horizontal background reads in the upper line: עוד אבנך ונבנית
(English: Another brick is being built) underlined by a dark blue line on top, in the middle the
Star of David in dark blue outline; and in the bottom line לגושׁ קטיף הביתה הוזרים
(English: The home was brought to Gush Kativ), underlined by a dark blue line (The word "home" hardly visible in blue).
A derivative flag of the 2005 protests, which represents the will of the
people to come back to Gaza once again, under a new movement called "HaBayta"
("Going Home") or in English, "Returning to Gush Katif" (dubbed "Friends of
Gush Katif"). (source:
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4839896,00.html and
http://www.gushkatif.co.il/en/product)
Esteban Rivera, 29 July 2020
![[The land of Israel for the people of Israel flag]](../images/i/il_eretz.jpg)
image located by William Garrison
