Some 70 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and about 30 people defending Israel rallied on opposite sides of the street March 30 in front of the Israel Consulate in downtown San Francisco.
The pro-Palestinian contingent was there largely to support the so-called Global March to Jerusalem, which saw Arabs and activists from the Middle East converging on Israel’s borders earlier the same day.
That international effort, which took weeks of organizing, drew demonstrations within Israel and in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as in Lebanon and Syria. Organizers claimed participants from 84 countries, but according to numerous sources, the turnout was much lower than the 2 million some activists had been predicting.
“[The march] was a giant failure,” said Faith Meltzer, a member of StandWithUs/SF Voice for Israel, which organized the counterdemonstration in San Francisco. Members of the organization held signs saying “Israel wants peace” and “Solidarity with Israel,” while some held a banner that read “Global March to Jerusalem FAIL.”
“What happened was, over the course of the planning period, these ties to the Iranian regime, to Hamas and Hezbollah, became very clear, and because of that I think many anti-Israel groups wouldn’t endorse this act,” she said.
On the other side of Montgomery Street, protesters from Code Pink held signs, joined by groups such as International ANSWER and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center. A small brass band accompanied the larger group throughout chants such as “Five, six, seven eight, Israel is a terror state,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Meltzer called the latter chant “an obvious call for Israel’s destruction.”
“These are not the two-state solution people we’re seeing here,” she said.
Flavia Fonta, a pro-Palestinian protester who said she wasn’t with any particular group, said that didn’t ring true for her. “I think there are many different points of view represented,” she said, adding that she had traveled extensively throughout the Middle East before becoming an activist. “But we’re all in support of the Palestinian people.”
The dual demonstrations, which lasted approximately two hours, went off without incident.