“I am a Jew and I am ashamed,” Adam Gutride’s hand-lettered sign said, as he stood outside the Israeli Consulate Tuesday in downtown San Francisco.
The S.F. resident was one of about 30 Jews from the Bay Area group, A Jewish Voice for Peace, who joined in a rally that organizers estimated at about 1,200 people. Sponsored by a number of Arab groups, including the Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee, the rally had a tenor that ranged from condemning the latest bouts of violence in Israel and the territories to condemning Israel itself.
Indeed, if the images of Israeli troops responding to Palestinian rock-throwing with bullets were eerily reminiscent of those from the height of the intifada, so too was the picture of local reaction outside the consulate.
Palestinian flags were held aloft on a stretch of Montgomery Street, and at one point, protesters attempted to burn a paper Israeli flag in the middle of the street, trampling it to pieces when the wind prevented it from fully catching on fire.
Printed signs read, “Israeli Repression; Made in the U.S.A.,” and “Israel: ‘Jewish-Only’ Democracy.” Hand-lettered signs said things like “Israeli/Zionist Notion of Peace: Scores of Palestinians Dead and Counting,” “Stop U.S. State-Sponsored Terrorism,” and the old standby, “Zionism is Racism.” One sign pictured a shofar, and demanded that Israel wake up and stop the killings.
Updating the scene was a new addition, a sign that said “Ariel Sharon, War Criminal,” referring to the leader of the Likud Party. It was Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem last week that Palestinians, in general, blame for setting off the rioting.
Many of those present wore kaffiyehs and hijabs (the head covering for Muslim women). Some women wore heart-shaped signs strung around their necks, with the name and hometown of children killed in the confrontation, along with the word “martyr.” Cars were allowed through in groups, with many of them honking their horns in solidarity.
Julia Caplan of Berkeley said A Jewish Voice for Peace put the call out over e-mail to its membership when it heard about the rally. The group was founded in 1996 to protest what it saw as the provocative action of Israel opening the exit to an archeological tunnel in the Arab quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which at the time, set off rioting and deaths.
Although at times, things like “Israel out of the Middle East” were shouted through the bullhorn, Caplan said, “I’m here because I want people to stop being killed. Of course we’re not going to agree on all the details.”
Jacob Mandelsberg of San Francisco, an activist in Jewish-Arab dialogue groups for almost 10 years, said that as both an Israeli and American citizen, he felt compelled to come to the rally, even though he found some of the anti-Israel rhetoric hurtful.
Speaking for himself only, Mandelsberg said that while he condemned Sharon’s visit, the occupation and unnecessary use of force against civilians, “I wish to clearly delineate my motivation as a concerned American-Israeli citizen, from that of a very emotional crowd that calls for the liberation of all of Palestine and burning the Israeli flag.”
Naomi Teplow of Oakland described herself as shocked and outraged. As an Israeli, she said she came to protest Sharon’s actions and the killings. Because she heard about the rally from a Jewish group, she thought it was the primary sponsor. When she got there, she found otherwise, and the flag burning, especially, gave her pause. “It’s going too far.” Yet at the same time, she said, “I understand how they feel.”
Lincoln Shlensky of Berkeley, another A Jewish Voice for Peace organizer, was offered the bullhorn and denounced the “provocative action” by Sharon “that caused an explosion.” “We stand in solidarity with Arabs and Palestinians today,” he said.
Several protesters made their way upstairs to the Israeli Consulate to deliver a letter, but were prevented from going inside by security. Gil Lainer, vice consul general, came outside into the hall to accept the letter, but refused to say more, said Iman Farajallah, a Palestinian-American who is executive director of the Santa Clara based-American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, and one of those who went upstairs.
Lainer refused to divulge the contents of the letter, saying it was addressed to the consulate, but Farajallah provided the Jewish Bulletin with a copy, which said, in part: “We ask for the immediate withdraw [sic] of the Israeli troops from the Palestinians [sic] territories. Furthermore we demand the firing of Ariel Sharon from his position in the Israeli government, and not to be allowed to the old city of Jerusalem, so violence will not accrue again.”
The letter also described the Israeli military as “murderous Israeli occupation troops who have gone on an uncontrolled rampage.”
On behalf of the Israeli Consulate, Lainer said that the Israeli government deplored violence and bloodshed of any kind.
“I would expect them to come out of the rally with a call of returning to the negotiating table immediately,” said Lainer, “to call for an immediate cease of violence and return to solving disputes in ways of negotiation and talking, rather than resorting to violence in the streets.
“From the beginning of the Oslo peace process, the Palestinians have committed themselves time and again to solving disputes in a nonviolent way,” Lainer added.
Similar protests were scheduled to take place during the week at U.C. Berkeley and San Francisco State University, with a march from City Hall to the Israeli Consulate planned for today, that organizers were predicting would be even larger. Arab merchants in the area were also to close their businesses from 1 to 3 p.m. in solidarity.
Meanwhile, A Jewish Voice for Peace intended to send a letter to area rabbis, asking them to address the situation in their Yom Kippur sermons.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, also called for Jews to raise their voices this Yom Kippur, and to include the Palestinian dead among those remembered in the Yizkor service.