Gee, that's ALL you could manage?
HATRED'S CHEERLEADERS
International ANSWER, organizers of anti-Semitic events in the Bay Area, must be getting desperate. Their hardcore was there, and their safety monitors this time nearly outnumbered the Arab jugend. But it was probably one of their most pathetic demonstrations yet.
They only managed about twelve hundred people.
It will be remembered that at the start of the Iraq war over a quarter of a million people took to the streets of San Francisco.
At demonstrations a few years ago, International ANSWER pulled together three or four thousand happy anti-Semites.
Last year during the fifth-anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, with three months of organization meetings and tactical planning, ANSWER and their willing dunces managed to have a few dozen people block some intersections for an hour here and there. Most of the direct action trolls were in custody by nine am.
And yesterday?
After an entire week of intensive organizing, e-mails, textmails, pamphletting, and sign-ups?
Twelve hundred. Not even.
PRO-ISRAEL DEMONSTRATORS
The sane and rational side managed a more impressive showing than I actually expected. Altogether, there were well over four hundred of us on the pro-Israel side. Families, young couples, elderly Russians, fresh-faced youths. Our side represented a significantly broader cross-spectrum than our opponents.
THUGGISM AND IGNORANCE
The SF Chronicle called the anti-Israel event a peaceful protest.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/10/BAK6157880.DTL
Which, despite the attack on an elderly woman, the occasional roughing up of passing Jews, and the strong-arm theft of some Israeli flags by Arab bullies, I guess it mostly was.
[Note: some of the stolen flags were subsequently set on fire by masked young gentlemen to the general joy of other participants.]
The Anarchists had promised to come and commit vandalism. But their internet presence is more impressive than their actual number in the real world. That old style violent Berkeleyite goonery has fewer adherents with each passing year. Not a single one of them showed up.
Much of the violence was verbal or textual.
One or two deranged people came over to scream incoherently before being escorted back to their side by the police. There were several Jew-hating chants from the line of face-covered Keffiyeh youth, and many of the handmade signs equated Zionism with Nazism. One totally baffling sign opined that Zionism was Anti-Semitism. An unusual sign stated that Gaza in 2008 was the same as the Warsaw Ghetto in 1938.
1938?
1938?!?
1938!?!?!
Okay then, 1938.
Have it your way.
INTERNATIONAL ANSWER AND YOUR BASER INSTINCTS
After Wednesday night's disgraceful performance in Oakland, where, with ANSWER's organized encouragement, a demonstration over the shooting of an un-armed handcuffed and subdued young man by BART police, turned into a violent melee in which ANSWER signs were used to destroy windows and damage parked vehicles (and oddly, some of the video shows one or two vandals wearing keffiyehs), ANSWER might worry that future protest-permits are iffy. There was somewhat less bloodthirsty chanting than at previous demos.
I only heard a few of the usual Arabic slogans, which were not as loud nor as sustained, as at previous hate-fests organized by ANSWER.
Perhaps they've learned that screaming "massacre the Jews" in Arabic is not as opaque as they presumed.
Still, some of the Arab jugend did act predictably. Their parents must be so ashamed at their children's lack of manners and morals.
Or not.
Maybe apathetic.
The most entertaining part of International ANSWER's buffoonery, however, were the speeches. These ran the gamut from an Arab woman having unintelligible hysterics on cue into a microphone, through an IRA terrorist drawing ridiculous comparisons, to some accented British revolutionary speaking fondly of the day when Hebrew-speaking labouring classes and the proletariat of the Arab world would create a workers-paradise in which everybody could manifest their full potential in a spirit of brotherly love and co-operation, heroically overcoming Capitalism, Religion, and Fascism.
It was a hoot.
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IN OTHER NEWS
FRIDAY
01/09/09
On Friday, two middle-aged female Zionists managed to discourage about twenty five Israel-haters in Alameda holding a pro-Hamas vigil. Mere moments after the two ladies with their Israeli flags showed up, the pro-Hamas side skedaddled while customers of a restaurant and a bar nearby came out to thank the pro-Israel side for showing up.
SATURDAY
01/10/09
Early Saturday evening, homosexual anti-Israel demonstrators held a noisy event in the Castro district, to the general disapproval of most of the people on the street. They were counter-protested by several local activists, and a swelling number of passers-by.
Most gay San Franciscans are keenly aware that only one state in the Mid-East offers gays full rights and protection. So when the Israel-haters started throwing shoes, in imitation of their ideological cohorts in parts of the extremist world, enthusiastic volunteers gathered up the flung footwear for deposit in nearby garbage cans. This proved discomfiting to the pro-terror side, as the throwers were left barefoot in consequence.
Note: Sidewalk cement is particularly frigid and uncomfortable at this time of year.
SUNDAY
01/11/09
Today, starting at 2:00 PM, pro-Israel demonstrators gathered in front of the consulate on Montgomery street, numbering nearly two hundred people at one point. Many carried Israel and American flags, others had signs advocating peace and a cessation of Hamas terrorism. People driving by waved, and many honked in support. Very inspiring.
8 comments:
By my count, the maximum number of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at any one time was 750, despite the numbers reported in the SF Comical (1000+).
-- Marshall
"1938?
1938?!?
1938!?!?!
Okay then, 1938.
Have it your way."
"Yes. I am a gay robot."
I give up: what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1938?
By my count, the maximum number of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at any one time was 750, despite the numbers reported in the SF Comical (1000+).
That's a bit low, but probably more accurate. I counted several times, and it actually never seemed to be more than a thousand. The back of the plaza was sparsely populated, and there were large gaps in the crowd standing in front of the podium.
On Indybay it was claimed that five thousand marched. Hardly likely - the posters there standardly exaggerate by a factor of four to ten. Marches that were attended by less than a thousand have often been blown up to mass rallies of ten thousand.
In the hands of ANSWER, neither history nor math are hard sciences. Actual facts are a Zionist plot that must be resisted at all times.
I was there on Sat and Sunday, and your description is accurate in my view.
The SFPD were actually prepared for once and had us cooped up behind double barriers for "our protection". The terror side was much more subdued compared to the rally at the Consulate earlier this month.
The Sat protest was quite weak and yes, the pathetic attempts to stoke the hate from the stage only seemed to promote chuckles from the Israeli side.
The Israeli side was a bit subdued but I think that was mostly due to the fact that most of us were elderly or families etc.
As you said the Sunday rally was encouraging as most passers by were supportive, except the arab cabbies of course.
And no counterprotest at all. Zero, not one.
I didn't see anything on the news about the Castro events you described. Did the Comical cover it? Sounds pretty funny tho'.
Am Yisrael Chai!!
Here's Zombie's report:
Pastable link:
http://zombietime.com/gaza_war_protest/
Clickable link:
I卐rael ?!?
Quote: "While the event was advertised as being specifically a protest against the invasion of Gaza, there seemed to me to be an undercurrent of unabashed anti-Semitism."
Based on the photos, I would say that Zombie is a master of deadpan understatement.
As an educated Arab-American it was an embarrassment to me. All of those masked, screaming hate filled people burning stolen Israeli flags made it look like a Klu Klux Klan Rally. It would be nice if other Arab-Americans behaved in public in such a way that they didn't confirm every negative stereotype of the Arab as bloodthirsty savage portrayed in the US media!
Samir
Samir,
That is precisely the point - you will NEVER see Arab-Americans behaving in public like civilized people, because when they do, they will NOT be noticed.
It is only when members of a group misbehave that their ethnicity or affiliation becomes an issue.
What you saw at that rally were not the majority of Arab-Americans, but the rowdy problem cases. And, like with all ethnicities, the problem cases unfortunately tend to confirm to the stereotypes.
What you would have seen at the riots in Stockholm, Rotterdam, and London, would not have been the quiet shopkeepers and businessmen, but the failures to assimilate - who, in those cities, have note even assimilated into their own ethnicity.
The majority of every ethnicity is usually invisible. By 'blending in', they fade into the background.
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