BY MOSHE HILL OPINION COLUMNS FEBRUARY 26 2025
When Ariel Sharon made the unilateral decision to forcibly remove Jews from their homes in Gaza and turn over the area to the Palestinians in a vain attempt (and failure) at peace, a movement against the disengagement plan immediately formed. This movement chose to symbolize their protest and struggle against their own government with the color orange. Orange ribbons, orange T-shirts, and orange flags were everywhere in 2005. Now, 20 years later, the color orange has resurfaced in Israel, this time as a reaction to a tragedy.
The story of the Bibas family is too painful to retell, yet it must be spoken, remembered, and honored. On October 7, Palestinians who joined Hamas – incorrectly labeled “civilians” – kidnapped Shiri Bibas and her two sons. Ariel was four and Kfir was nine months old. Yarden, their father, was also taken, and the grandparents were killed. The ages of the children and the brutality in which they were taken made them the most recognizable of the hundreds of hostages.
A month later, those boys were dead, something that was not confirmed until this week. They were separated from their mother and murdered by strangulation. Hamas claimed – and their supporters parroted – that the family was killed by an Israeli airstrike. To cover their lie, Hamas mutilated the bodies of these children. Their supporters ate it up, still blaming Israel for the death of the Bibas children and ignoring that they were kidnapped by Palestinian “civilians.”
The orange hair of the boys inspired Israel to use the color orange as a way to commemorate this tragedy. The official X account of the State of Israel replaced its profile picture with an orange Israeli flag instead of the standard blue. Orange boxes were added to countless names on social media.
The orange motif spread around the world in a stunning series of tributes to this family. In Tel Aviv, hundreds of orange balloons were released into the sky. In Rio de Janeiro, the iconic statue of the Christian savior was illuminated in orange. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul had 14 state landmarks, including One World Trade Center and Niagara Falls, glow orange. San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid also shone orange that same day. Beverly Hills saw Jewish community members release orange balloons skyward, echoing Tel Aviv. Switzerland mirrored this with its own orange balloon release, accompanied by “Hatikvah,” and in Buenos Aires – where the Bibas family held citizenship – the Obelisco projected their images, aligning with the global orange-themed mourning. Yamil Santoro, a legislator in Buenos Aires’s municipal legislature, introduced a bill to rename “Estado de Palestina” (State of Palestine) street in the Almagro neighborhood to “Familia Bibas” (Bibas Family), honoring Shiri and her sons.
This color scheme is not a coincidence. In 2005, the color orange emerged as a powerful symbol of resistance against Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan, which involved the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and military forces from the Gaza Strip. The choice of orange was influenced by multiple factors, including its association with the orange groves of Gush Katif, the main Jewish settlement bloc in Gaza, symbolizing the agricultural life that tsettlers were being forced to abandon.
Opponents of the plan, primarily settlers and their supporters, adopted orange as their unifying hue, adorning cars, clothing, and even wedding decorations with orange ribbons, T-shirts, and flags. This vibrant “orange wave” flooded Israeli streets, serving as a visible, non-violent expression of dissent against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision, which they viewed as a betrayal of their Zionist ideals and a security risk, contrasting sharply with the blue and white ribbons of disengagement supporters.
Twenty years later, in hindsight, the choice of color back then was a prophetic message against disengagement from Gaza. In Judaism, prophecy is told through riddles, and only the prophets are able to interpret these riddles and act on them. True prophets have not existed since biblical times, so there is no way of knowing what G-d is telling us until it’s too late.
The bookending of the orange campaign of 2005 and the orange motif of remembrance in 2025 feels like a Divine riddle that we overlooked. Now the message seems clear: “Do not sacrifice this land that we were given for the empty promises of our enemies.” It seems like putting faith in a false god instead of having belief that G-d will take care of the Jewish people as He always has done. October 7 made that clear, and the tragedy of the Bibas family serves as a reminder to those who have already forgotten.
It’s past time to take this seriously. The so-called “two-state solution” is dead, that much is clear. More so, the Jewish people must reclaim every inch of land and holy sites that were given to us through Divine mandate. To do anything less would be to invite more tragedy in the future.