ORANGE IS NOT MY COLOR

Orange is my least liked color. It does absolutely nothing for me. I just don't like it. But that isn't stopping me from wearing it and having orange streamers tied to Harley Too's mirrors. Orange is the color the soon to be evicted settlers chose to symbolize their struggle against Sharon's insane insistence on withdrawing from Gaza no matter what. The man is most certainly certifiably insane, as well as senile, and most likely in advanced stages of dementia. He just can't pass up an opportunity to attack the settlers who disagree with him with every vile, arrogant, untrue bit of invective he can dredge from the ruin of his mind. He also dares to claim that they/we are dangerous to democracy. Excuuse me? Democracy? In Israel? Sharon? He should be locked up for that alone. this is the man who swore he would never give up the territories in order to be elected. He was no sooner elected than he did a 180 and announced that there was no choice but to pull unilaterally out of Gaza. His party's central committee didn't like that one little bit and held a vote on the issue. Sharon promised to abide by the vote, then did another 180 and carried on all the while saying that he won the election and that was as much of a referendum as anyone needed. He of course completely ignored the annoying fact that he was elected only because he swore not to do what he is now hell bent on doing. Democracy? I don't think so.
If all that isn't enough, he attacks those who disagree with him on a daily, no, hourly basis. This insanity has been going on since the day he was reelected and rather than doing the right/correct/democratic thing and either having new elections or a referendum, he's going ahead no matter what. This in spite of the fact that very little has been done to ready new homes for the evicted settlers. There have been several demonstrations against the withdrawal, mostly pretty restrained. Last week there was an ugly incident where some hooligans spilled oil and ninja nails on a main junction. Of course it was the settlers, there's no doubt in spite of the fact that the criminals who did it have not been caught. Geee, it couldn't possibly have been the handiwork of provocateurs, could it? Of course most of the road blocking has been done by settlers from the West Bank(a much more radical bunch) who will soon be in the same situation as the Gazans.
We had a bit of a wild night up here in the north last week. My old pals the Hezbollah crossed the UN approved border and got caught. Both sides got in a shooting match and one of our soldiers was killed. And we got one of theirs. We can hear the artillery in town and Pegasus mostly ignores it. Suddenly there was a loud boom that sounded like a katyusha. Peg did his flying dog imitation and landed on me shaking all over. I called my reporter and told him. Peg is an infallible predictor of things going boom that shouldn't. The whole town was in a panic that katyushas were landing. The news reported that the shelters were open,(they weren't) and later we found out that the Katyusha was in fact a missile that fell off a helicopter(ours) and hit between a moshave called Margaliot and my old neighborhood in town. Pegasus still has his 100% rating. It was indeed something that should not have gone boom. Sometimes I just don't know why we bother. We get all worked up about the Hezbollah,(Nassralla is one leader you can believe, he has promised a day full of surprises on withdrawal from Gaza day, and I believe him) then shell ourselves by accident.
Israelis pride themselves on being politically savvy, we are, with a few exceptions a country of people who take sides for no good reason and with very little thought. It always amazes the locals that I can back up my opinions with facts and not emotion. Israelis are either Likud, (right), Labor, (leftish) or Meretz, (left) for the simple reason that their parents were. We/They have no idea where to go for accurate information which is needed to form an opinion. It's exhausting, it is.