ZIONIST CHOP SQUAD

A report on our counterdemo to the protest in front of the Israeli consulate last Friday organized by MECA (Middle East Children's Alliance - a probable HAMAS front group) and ANSWER (an umbrella organization of various well-known extremist Marxian groups and individuals who have taken over the anti-war movement, and front for several reprehensible and outright repulsive causes).

TIME: Friday, March 7th, 4PM-7PM.
PLACE: Downtown San Francisco, 456 Montgomery Street.



How did it go?

Not as bad as the old Irish war song: "Our foes were united and we were divided, we met and they scattered our ranks to the wind".
But we did not do very well. And they were better prepared. They reacted less to us, listened more to their speakers, chanted fairly damn well in unison, and made a darn good stab at avoiding certain phrases which always discredit them. No dogs, no rivers to the sea.


SPEECHY-WEECHY

Chatem Bazian spoke - he's good, real good. Ninety percent bullshit delivered eloquently, with no qualms and no shred of shame.
The Lubin woman - emotional, but collected. Mostly to the point. More bs.
[Chatem Bazian is a notorious Jew-bater and academic low-life, Barbara Lubin's sole claim to fame is hanky-panky - rumoured to have had a torrid affair with a mayor of a local burg. She's a classic kapo.]


Some dunce ranted for a while about how he promised his dad that he would never lose this key, and if not him then his son would someday open the door of their house in Yerushalayim with this key. Emotional, nearly weeping - the crowd loved it.
A fellow dunce gibbered about Haifa University, buses, apartheid, graduating but not being employable in Israel because of those bad, bad, bad Jews (bad Jew! No bagel for you!).
[Both of them are friends of Shawkat, who was also there. Shawkat is the Palestinian fire-brand with the devilish twinkle in his eye and the sunny smile. He's utterly likeable, and absolutely dangerous. None of these three should be allowed anywhere near a jerrycan of gasoline - Arabs and oil don't mix.]


Some old lady of the Berkeley self-guiltied ilk went off on a gibbering tangent. A speaker from Answer gave a toned-down revolutionary-comrades speech at the end of which he advertised for the nineteenth (*). Another Answernik spoke warmly and at length about how they would always be there for Palestine and the poor Palestinians, they would never leave them, they would always stand with them, their sacred duty, their heartfelt friends, etc, etc.
Someone mentioned sending aid to Gaza - a ship or something, someone else talked about an Islamic charity.

By around six o'clock they ran out of steam, having said everything thrice, and left.


There had been about one hundred to 150 of them, mostly local Muslims, but well-leavened by Answerscum, self-haters, student morons, and one or two of the weiben oyf shwortz.
Jewish Mom and Angry Biker Dude can identify the known members of the dark side.



WE FEW, WE HAPPY FEW, WE BAND OF..... WHAT?

On our side, we had about a dozen of our core cadre, plus a rightwinger who makes Geert Wilders look like a warm and fuzzy communist, a mother and her daughter who are very nice, and two little old ladies. One or two more. Twenty would be a mild exaggeration.

There are a few people we need to keep from the megaphone at all times. Off the top of my head, I would say anybody in the legal profession - a street fight is not a court case with rational arguments, but a question of short, sweet (or bitter, vicious, venomous - same difference), to the point noise barrage.

Our chants were mostly not.

And we need to police ourselves a bit.

No playing in traffic. No fingers (shoes and the Italian meh gesture are okay). Keep an eye on who walks behind you. Look to your left and right. Keep an eye on the cops, the other side, the flags and signs, the passersby.


It was, more or less, the usual semi-anarchic 'Yeshiva of the streets' performance. We're good conversationalists (when our blood-sugar level is up, and we've got our inhalers). That's probably not something you could've guessed.

==================================

(*) The nineteenth: a group of Bay Area activists re-started Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW), with the intent to shut San Francisco down on the fifth anniversary with a series of direct actions against corporations and government offices.
They promise a day of decentralized, multiple-target direct actions - probably involving vandalism, flying objects, and office take-overs.

In training sessions, garbage-can fires, breaking windows, and pouring water on computers are all being touted as "non-violent protest", in addition to the usual traffic blocking, barricading of doors and entry ways, plus random distribution of noxious substances.

Direct Action starts at 7:30 AM.

A group will probably be chaining themselves to the fence around the Montgomery Bart Station or the door to the office building at McKesson Plaza around late morning, others will be attempting to trash some of the corporate offices along Market Street as well as attempting to storm the British Consulate, Citicorp, and the Export-Import Bank of the U.S .

The anarchists will probably join in once they wake up - noonish, my guess. They're the window-breaking types. And if no-one is watching, they will torch trash receptacles and smash car-windows. Think of juvenile hoodlums without an organized gang-structure. Drug-addicts, unemployables, and Berkeleyites, mostly.

International ANSWER has a rally in the evening in Civic Center, after which groups will disperse over downtown for anti-government actions and manifestations (specific plans and targets unavailable).

It promises to be an exiting day. I expect that laws will be broken with gay abandon.