WHAT HAPPENED IN FRONT OF THE CONSULATE AND HOW DID THE COUNTER-DEMO GO?

Call it a victory and gloat.
Neener... neener... neener.


We arrived at the area in front of the Israeli consulate between two o'clock and two thirty - one by one, trickling in from different directions. By quarter to three we were wondering when Amalek would finally get there.

[Note: Amalek is the most apposite term - we found out that this was a radical Islamic spin-off from Al Awda. And Al Awda is a nasty bunch to begin with.]


CANCELLED

Shortly after three o'clock, the police told us it wouldn't be happening, and started clearing away the barriers and orange cones.

The group that organized the event had gotten a permit for eight hundred people. That may have been wishful thinking, or in fact insane optimism. What they ended up with was only about twenty participants while down at Civic Center, and then they heard that we were in front of the consulate to counter-demo them.
Our being prepared may have been the last straw.

[Maybe they didn't want to face us, or perhaps they heard a boiling ibriq with some cardamom coffee beckon.......... ('Umm al 'Qahwa' is a harsh mistress).]


They called it off. They decided not to hike that last mile for a screamfest with less than two dozen people on their side. As one of our people put it, "ten counterprotestors standing in front of the consulate looks pretty good, but an angry protest march with only twenty people just looks silly".
All of it must have been just too much for them (as well as not being enough).


So we declared victory and left.


It was the best possible outcome for a pro-Israel counter-demo clobbered together at the last moment.
Still, I would've gladly welcomed those twenty or so radical Muslims; I was prepared to take off a shoe and wave it at 'em.
It would've been so nice seeing their wee little mob wearily turn the corner only to find us waiting. From Civic Center to Montgomery and California is not a short march, and I guess ten Zionists could scare anybody.


Note: It isn't that there aren't eight hundred extremists in San Francisco - there are several times that number. But getting even a few hundred of them all on the same page is undoubtedly a daunting organizational slog. Keeping them united long enought to riot purposefully, without them starting to go for each others' throats, is probably well-nigh impossible. Even if they do all belong to the same mosque.