Two pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but one pro-Israel demonstration

On December 28, there were two demonstrations across the street from each other, outside of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles on Wilshire Boulevard. Both were pro-Palestinian. But only one was also pro-Israel, while the other was anti-Israel.

The first demonstration was called by Code Pink, which describes itself as "a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities." In a word, leftist pacifists who oppose war and violence (unless directed against Israel). One of its projects is the Gaza Freedom March! This is a bunch of people trying to get into Gaza, so far unsuccessfully. "Solidarity Actions" were scheduled in various cities, including Los Angeles.

StandWithUs and the Council of Israeli Community hastily summoned a counter-demonstration. This crowd lofted signs that said things like, "Free the Palestinians from Hamas," and "Hamas stop using Gaza as a launching pad." This recognition that the Palestinians are suffering under Hamas misrule, and this sympathy for their suffering, is characteristic of many pro-Israel demonstrations.

Across the street, there were similar signs: "Justice for Gaza," "Let Gaza Live," "No collective punishment," and the like. Their anti-Israel message wasn't front and center. But scratch the surface, and it emerged.

For example, while I mingled with them, a man handed me a flier: "ANNOUNCING A NEW WEBSITE!!!!! . . . DEDICATED TO PRESENTING EVIDENCE THAT ISRAEL--NOT MUSLIMS--DID 9/11!!! THAT ISRAEL, WITH THE HELP OF DISLOYAL AMERICANS, PLANNED AND EXECUTED 9/11!!" He also told me that Osama bin Laden died soon after 9/11, and all the subsequent audio and video tapes apparently featuring bin Laden were produced in Israel. Anti-Semitism certainly brings out the lunacy in some folks.

More evidence. I was handed a bumper sticker, "LET GAZA LIVE!" which further substantiated the organizers' anti-Israel bias. This sticker bore the names of two websites: www.ifamericansknew.org, and www.freegaza. It's worthwhile to dig into each of these groups.

Freegaza's "Points of Unity" (its statement of principles) includes Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967, and  "the right of all Palestinian refugees and exiles and their heirs to return to their homes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories; to recover their properties, and to receive compensation for damage, dispossession and unlawful use of such property." This must be understood; it means that there should be a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, and a Palestinian Arab majority in Israel. It's a call for the elimination of the Jewish state.

The southern California leaders of Freegaza include Mary Hughes Thompson and Karin Pally. Both of them detest Israel. Thompson endorsed a letter of the Canada Palestine Association to the Assembly of First Nations, after a delegation committed the crime of visiting Israel and being favorably impressed. It stated in part:

The victims of genocide at the hands of European settler colonialism cannot and should not give cover for another form of settler colonialism that has committed and continues to commit wholesale ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people and nation.  In 1948, over four hundred villages and towns were wiped off the Palestinian and world map and their cemeteries desecrated; two thirds of the Palestinian people were uprooted from their historic homeland and forced to live in reservations called refugee camps for the past fifty-eight years, most outside of their historic land. . . .

Perhaps the chiefs, elders and leaders of the Assembly of First Nations don’t know the history of the Zionist movement.  In fact, it was coined on the model of the European settler colonialist movement that preceded it four hundred years earlier and committed the genocide against the indigenous peoples.  The Zionist movement was also built on the South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Algeria and other European settler colonialist models of the same era – late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Her local co-leader, Karin Pally, signed a 2008 letter deploring the birth of Israel which included this passage:

We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations.

Turning to the If Americans Knew organization, it is essentially the mouthpiece of Alison Weir, who believes that Israel deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in 1967, that "It is difficult to know how often Israeli trafficking involves outright theft of vital organs from living human beings;" and "What Israel says, our media repeat. What Israel demands, our government gives. What Israel wants, its well-greased lobby delivers."

That's the sort of people who organize demonstrations in front of the Israeli Consulate.

The fundamental problem thus remains. The vast majority of Israelis favor a two-state solution; the Palestinians who count--the ones with guns and rockets--do not. The majority of Israelis and their supporters abroad have no objection to a Palestinian state if it means Israel no harm; the majority of Palestinians and their supporters regard Israel as fundamentally illegitimate. If the Palestinians would lay down their arms, there would be peace; if the Israelis would lay down their arms, there would be genocide.

That's the sad lesson of two pro-Palestinian demonstrations and one pro-Israel demonstration.