Pics from Protest at Israeli Embassy in SF, July 6, 2010

[abduLMaria]

Here's a pic of the Israeli Embassy at 456 Montgomery Street.



The guy with the shaved head at the microphone, and the guy with the black sweatshirt with the red lettering, were instrumental in organizing the protest.  That's the Israeli embassy in the background.

Here's looking South down the sidewalk -



Here's looking North -


I'd say there were about 200 protesters, including some children that were just fun to watch.  I have 3 sets of photos, I used a digital camera and 2 disposable cameras.

One of my goals was to advertise important websites.  This is my sign.  One side had 5 URL's, starting with PalestineRemembered.com.  The other side had more info about Al Nakba and normal captions such as "Stop Israeli Apartheid".



Of course there were counter-protesters, and a few scuffles/ fistfights.  I had that cop on the left staring at me & my sign the whole time.  I wonder if he learned anything.



The situation at the beginning was very fluid.  Both the Protesters & the Counterprotesters were on the sidewalk in front of the embassy.

There were a few Israeli-supporters walking around with horns, like those vuvuzela World Cup things.  One of them was over 6 feet tall, and walked up to a 16 year old young woman who had come all the way down from Humboldt (a full day of travel) - and blew it right in her ear.  For which, to my surprise, he was arrested.  I didn't expect the cops to support the protesters in any way, I figured Israel owns them.

Anyway, more pics later, as I get them developed.

AnswerSF organized the protest -
http://answersf.org/

[MikeWB]

That is AWESOME! Great job!!!

[thirdeyewise]

Yeah, great job!!

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Hats off to you!! Great Job!!

[brandon dean]

good deal.  one thing I can definitely say about them bay area people is they tend to get up off their asses and do things when they're pissed off, whether I agree with their causes or not.  this is obviously a worthy cause.  thanks abdulmaria. your sign is great...

[abduLMaria]

Thanks a lot for the feedback !   8-)



/  This first picture shows the first guy to show up at the protest, and raise a flag.  The guy with the beard, looking to the right.  I got there about an hour early and walked around, not being sure what the "protocol" (bad choice of words ?) was.  Then I came back and saw him, and once I saw the colors (Red, Black, and Green) I knew where to stand.




/  This shows the fence-off arrangement at the beginning of the protest, about
4:30 PM.  I'm not sure if anybody knew what the final arrangement would be.
I heard a woman in business attire pleading with the police officers about who
would get to stand where, like "I called the precinct and they TOLD me they
would be moved to a free speech area !"

In case it's not clear, the protesters and the israel supporters were on the same
side of the street, early on, with barricades separating us.  At some point, maybe 4:45 maybe, the protesters were allocated the entire sidewalk and the israel supporters went to stand across the street.




/  I entitled this picture "Mossad SF".  The three people I have drawn arrows to were the 3 israel supporters that the protesters were met with.  The woman in the pink hat was in front of the embassy sitting at a table about 3:30, an hour early. I talked to her briefly.  I was wearing a flight jacket, what I call my "jock jacket". I asked her about the Answer SF protest, and she said "you guys stand over there", motioning to the other side of the street.  At this time I hadn't shown my colors, I was just someone carrying a portfolio wrapped in burlap.  I will refer to her as Pink Hat.

The tall man with the horn I shall refer to as the Arrestee.  He was one of the tallest people there, over 6 feet tall.  Right at the beginning of the protest, about 4:30 PM, he walked up to a young woman (the woman who came down from Humboldt) and blew it right in her ear.  She was about 5 feet tall and obviously very young.  This happened about 10 feet in front of me ... with 10 police watching.  My understanding is that he was subsequently arrested.

The short skinny guy on the left, with the Davy Crockett hat and the plastic horn ... I'll call him Davy Crockett.

Both of the guys were wearing Yarmulke hats.

If I was in charge of Public Relations for the embassy I would do a face-palm if I saw this picture.

I drew a halo over the guy in the back.  I didn't talk to him but it looks like he is enjoying watching the situation.  I think he is one of the good guys.  NOTE - I'm using Tinypic to host the pics and it's clipping off the part on the right.  It might take me a few to get the pic set up right.




/  A close-up of the Arrestee & Davy Crockett.  This is at about 4:30 PM, so it's close to the time when the Arrestee assaulted the young woman with his horn.

The guy in the back in the black sweatshirt with the red lettering is one of the good guys.




One of the protesters drawing in chalk on the sidewalk in front of the embassy.




The woman with the horn and the guy to her right were 2 of the most powerful people at the event.  Israel didn't kill my ancestors - Israel killed their ancestors.

Shortly after 4:30 , the group started walking in a counter-clockwise motion, up and down the sidewalk.  Then, a few minutes later, this young Arabic woman, that's holding the horn in this picture, walked to the sidewalk directly in front of the embassy and just started yelling - without the microphone.  I forget all the chants, these are some of them -
"Intifada, Intifada"
"1, 2, 3, 4, We don't Need Your Racist War
5, 6, 7, 8, Israel is a Terrorist State"
"No Justice, No Peace"

There was a lot more variety than that, but I'm having trouble remembering it.  So basically we were standing there yelling for about an hour and 45 minutes.




This shows the number of cops at the event.  This was at maybe 4:25 PM, right before the official starting time.  Altogether there were 20 to 25 cops visible.

The guy in the grey shirt behind the cop on the left seemed to be associated with the embassy.




Another picture of the Arrestee.  This is about 4:15 PM, 15 minutes before the official starting time.  He was standing in front of the embassy smoking a pipe, before he got out his horn and started blowing it.




This is about 4 PM, when I was still trying to figure out where the protesters would be.  This is the side of the embassy.  About 3:30 PM I walked on the sidewalk between that cop car and the building.  The garage door went up and a black Mercedes came out.  I think this is the private parking for the Israeli embassy.


Finally, I found these other web pages from earlier protests.  There was a protest about 5 weeks ago, right after Israel's attack on the aid flotilla.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/0 ... 649305.php

This is another web page, apparently from an Israeli Jew.  But it has some good pictures from a protest in 2006.
http://zombietime.com/israeli_consulate ... y_13_2006/

[Wimpy]

Great job abduLMaria!

[abduLMaria]

I can't edit my post so I'll try to re-post the picture with the 3 counter-protesters -


"San Francisco Sayanim Defend the Honor of the Mishtucka / Mishpucka"


Here's the other side of my sign.  I tried to use the color red to tie together Holocaust, Nakba, and Catastrophe.  Nakba is the Palestinian word for Catastrophe.  Israel tried to pass or passed a law this last year making it illegal for anybody in Israel to commemorate the Nakba.



This is the side with the Guerrilla Advertising for some of my favorite websites   8-)
I tried to use color to separate the lines of text a little.


This picture shows the construction of the sign a little.  Where the white arrow is pointing to, that point is 6 feet off the ground.  The white part is standard Foamcore from an art supply store, it measures 32 inches by 40 inches.  0.9 meters x 1.1 meters for the metric folks.  I clip the printed sign to the blank sign framework using office clips.

[§N9sh2bj]

oh it was a ram's horn. how fitting. i guess he believes in the fairy-stories about a ram's horn 'blowing down protesters'

If I was in charge of Public Relations for the embassy I would do a face-palm if I saw this picture.

My experience, when I asked about their rather obvious mumbai slaughter and other public-relations disasters < as the group of criminals are few yet at many locations, a little like asian flower-shops > is they just blew it off. Made their typical excuses, excuses, excuses.

That's exactly what you need, their lack of hubris, humility, and grace. People deep into being under lucifer's spell desire none of it. The only action they excel at is arrogance.

[pas]

Great job ,AbdulMaria thanks.

Love the sign, very powerfull.