Protestors' Radicalism Flies Below Times' Radar

"Rally Protests Fighting in Gaza"
A24, Sunday, 1/4/09
By Ray Rivera

What else besides the "Israeli assault on Gaza" was protested at Saturday's local rally? With an accompanying photo showing protest signs with "Free Palestine," "Right of Return," and "From The River To The Sea," readers are offered a hint, but given no help by reporter Ray Rivera.

Do these protestors simply "support an independent Palestinian state," as Rivera explains? Many support the creation of a Palestinian state, but not one that exists side by side in peace with Israel. One would be hard-pressed to find these protestors, even the "Jewish groups" among them, supporting a two-state solution. Such a scenario is not in the chant "Free, free Palestine," a chant cited – but unexplained – by Rivera. Readers who are mostly unfamiliar with the [at-times] deceptive language of such protests are simply misled, willfully or not.

The first crack in the headline's claim that the "rally protests fighting in Gaza," occurs in the fourth paragraph. "Now it's time for Israel to come in and face the people on the ground…it's all-out war now and we'll see what happens." This almost sounds like a defiant war cry, not a protest of the fighting.

Rivera offers a good quote from a counter-protest organizer, who takes to task the trite line that Israel's actions are disproportionate. The man points out that proportionality isn't measured by a death count from either side; that people should do everything in their power to protect themselves.

Rivera writes that "the anger mirrored tensions that have played on a global stage." What he didn't elaborate on was why, and the answer is in what is not reported: it's not truly Israel's specific operations, but Israel's right to exist and thus, right to self-defense, which many protest.

The article ends conveying an incomplete message. Yes, many of the protestors are concerned that "a lot of innocent people are going to die," as a result of Israel's ground invasion. But that is not the dominant point of these protestors, which is, as evidenced in the photo: Down With Israel.

The radicalism of these protestors is also seen in other signs and messages, which among other things, promote a Socialist new world order and compare Israel's operation with the Holocaust.

This radical anti-Israel hatred, not simply a protest against fighting, is what needed to be conveyed.