On May 31, the day after Israel’s bloody and unconscionable raid against civilian aid volunteers in international waters, around 1,000 people gathered in Times Square to protest. The next day, June 1, the same number showed up to protest again, meeting at 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue and marching to Times Square.
The organizers had arranged for 200 feet of the street to be blocked off for the demonstration, and by the time the march began, it was overflowing. There were very few news cameras around, though, most of them from the independent and left-leaning press. A counter-protest was held a few blocks away by people who supported Israel’s blockade of Gaza and its attack against the flotilla. A friend and I went to check it out. He suggested I hide the kuffiyeh that was hanging around my neck, but I was in no mood to cater to anyone’s delicate sensibilities after what had happened. It was a symbol of solidarity and resistance to illegal brutality, and I wore it proudly.
The right-wing protest looked as packed as the pro-justice protest, and it was surrounded by journalists, most of them apparently mainstream. One of them, well-dressed and sharply-groomed, from a local Fox station, was asking a protester what he thought about the claim by activists that the boats were attacked in international waters, and that Israel’s assault was therefore illegal. I leaned in closer, very interested to listen to his answer.
Just then a large bald man, apparently an organizer who noticed my kuffiyeh, stepped between me and the interview and asked accusingly, “Where are you from?” I replied, “Oklahoma.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You can’t stand here. Not with that scarf. You know what it means, don’t you? It means support for terrorism.”
I laughed, because it was such an absurdist thing to say. The kind of thing you don’t expect real people to say right in front of you.
“You can’t stand here,” he repeated. “It’s a free country,” I reminded him.
He mumbled something and walked away. Soon I was confronted by a huge policeman with a thick Bronx accent. “You can’t stand here,” he said. “Join the protest or step aside. They got permits for this space, they can choose who they want to be in there, and they don’t want you in there, so step aside.”
“I’m not in there,” I said. “I’m standing on the sidewalk.”
“You can’t stand there.”
“I can’t stand here because he says so?”
“Ma’am, I will lock you up for refusing to obey a legal order.”
“You’ll lock me up because I’m standing on the sidewalk?”
“This is a crosswalk, ma’am. It’s illegal to stand here. Step aside or I will arrest you.”
I nodded now that he said something halfway sensible and stepped out of the trickle of pedestrian traffic, too far away to engage or listen to the protesters except for hearing a few intermittently chanting, “Stop the flotilla, Stop the Islamic terror!”
My friend, who is Jewish, was also rustled up and kicked off the sidewalk for trying to talk to one of the protesters, with no ready excuse that he was standing in a crosswalk, because he wasn’t. He argued in vain with the same police officer (“It’s illegal to have a conversation?”), then he joined me near the curb. With no more reason to be there, we headed back to the pro-justice protest.
And that’s when the illusion was broken. The pro-Israeli-government protest had reserved as much space as the pro-justice protest. But their protesters were all crammed into about one-sixth of the space at one end, where the cameras were surrounding them. There couldn’t have been more than 150 people. From the angle we saw as we were approaching it, it looked about as formidable as the pro-justice movement. But from the angle we saw as we were leaving it, it perfectly encapsulated the state of Israel’s government’s supporters today—surrounded by cameras, aided unquestioningly by the powers that be, with an increasingly sad, defensive, sputtering illusion of popular support.
Pamela Olson is working on a book called Fast Times in Palestine.
That’s a pretty apt summary for how 90% of the news reporting in the US operates: dozens of cameras surrounding a tiny gathering of influential idiots while the real news happens blocks away.
The problem I have with Zionists is that they abuse democracy. Whenever they need to spout some ignorant and racist vile, they revert back to the Freedom-of-Speech justification. When it doesn’t suit them they play dirty and game the system.
That hypocrisy permeates through much of the governmental institutions and the corporate structure. When the Social Security office loses your paperwork, for example, they brush it off and apologize (much in the same way Israel and the US treat civilian casualties), “We’re sorry, we’re only human”. Should YOU, the citizen, claim that you misplaced your tax returns when the IRS comes a knokin’ then suddenly all **** breaks loose, and your sins are soon delineated to you.
This one way relationship is the epitome of the master-slave relationship. That model can pretty much be used to explain anything in our modern age, especially when governments are involved.
As for this particular incident, I find it quite offensive on several levels that the jerk rolled his eyes when you said “Oklahoma” and without missing a beat, went on to patronize you with the Kaffiya-terrorist connection. Seeking to compensate for his deficiencies, he hates everyone that doesn’t belong to his inner circle of Zionists. Not to be outdone, the police fella came along to throw his weight around. Nevertheless, it looks like you asserted your rights as far as you could go without getting arrested.
The policeman came because the organizer went to fetch him, probably telling him I was an agitator. But yes, it was quite amusing to be patronized by a certified moron, and disturbing to be near someone so smugly removed from reality.
Bravo, Pamela, I have been admiring your work since Sept 2006 with and for the Palestinians; you’re truly an inspiration.
Thank you Pamela. You are, indeed, an inspiration.
Incidentally, I just wrote about this same phenomenon the other day in regards to the Washington Post’s coverage of the flotilla. The angle that you saw as you were approaching the pro-Israel protest is no doubt the angle that the newspaper photographers and news cameras will be sure to highlight in their coverage, thus making the pro-Israel side seem much, much larger than it actually is. Likewise, the Palestinian solidarity group, if it is covered at all, will be shot in such a way so as to appear quite small (usually by way of close-ups, as I pointed out in my comments in the link below).
I first noticed this trend when I was following the Iraq war demonstrations a few years back. Their was one in particular, I forget where – it may have been D.C. – that I first saw depicted on TV and in mainstream newspaper photos, and it appeared to be relatively small. I then saw an online photo of the exact same demonstration and it was huge!
The world as presented to us through the mainstream media (and, frankly, through many of the alleged “alternative” media outlets as well) is truly an illusion. Deceptive photography and video are just as effective a propaganda technique as obfuscating verbiage. Perhaps even more so.
link to mondoweiss.net
Thanks again for all you do. I loved your google presentation :)
It would be really cool to see side-by-side pictures or video of the two protests, showing the number of people in each one and all the cameras around the right-wing protest. Maybe a split-screen with footage of one protest on each side, or just still shots. That would go viral.
RE: …He argued in vain with the same police officer (“It’s illegal to have a conversation?”) – Pamela Olson
Memorable quotes for The Pianist (2002)
Wladyslaw Szpilman: “It’s an official decree, no Jews allowed in the parks.”
Dorota: “What, are you joking?”
Wladyslaw Szpilman: “No, I’m not. I would suggest we sit down on a bench, but that’s also an official decree, no Jews allowed on benches.”
Dorota: “This is absurd.”
Wladyslaw Szpilman: “So, we should just stand here and talk, I don’t think we’re not allowed to do that.”
SOURCE – link to imdb.com
israel is so savagely, dangerously desperate because when the illusion is exposed, its power crumbles utterly – they truly think with more viciousness, more menace and more evil they can keep it from happening
Recall when Netanyahu said Israel is ‘benefiting from the attack’ as it ‘swung American public opinion. They could use a red herring now.
“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,”
According the AFP, 8 Turks and 1 American (of Turkish origin) are among the dead of the Marmara raid. No mention of other deaths.
Huit Turcs et un Américain d’origine turque font partie des neuf personnes tuées lors du raid israélien sur la flottille d’aide à Gaza, a annoncé aujourd’hui l’agence turque Anatolie.
link to lefigaro.fr
I had a feeling an American might be among the dead – it explains Israel’s crazy blackout on the names and nationalities of the casualties – it’s been three days!! They’ve been buying time cause they’ve know they’re in pickled shit!!
And still no complete list of deaths, only nine so far. Remember the first messages were “most of them [deaths] Turkish”, i.e. not all of them. More to come.
Lawrence of Cyberia is Putting Names to Faces of those killed.
Deported activists: Israelis ‘shooting without warning’
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
link to dailystar.com.lb
Mearsheimer on Al-Jazeera:
‘People have been trying to make out the West Bank to be a paradise but many South Africans have said that it’s worse than Apartheid’
‘The Americans have admitted and so have Israelis, that Israel’s policies are disastrous for the US but the US is powerless to do anything because of the Israel lobby’
Mustafa Barghouti on the same programme:
‘The non-violence movement is gaining traction, not just in Palestine but also internationally. Israel fears this movement and have desperately been trying to suppress it’
reminds me of Rachel Ray in this commercial:
link to huffingtonpost.com
Pamela, the media did the same thing in Philly.
The ABC affiliate portrayed this demonstration as a conflict between forces. There were originally FOUR pro-Israeli hecklers, who were joined by another four during the march. They followed us down the street like pathetic hangers-on, and were occasionally put in their place with chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!”
link to abclocal.go.com
(BTW, those are my kids in the thumbnail photo!)
I failed to notice the presence of white Protestants. Methodist Senators Hilary Clinton and John Edwards supported and support ethnic cleansing and occupation. Is there any branch of Protestantism that is not under the leadership of white trash?
Pamela – I was at the demo as well, but unfortunately was unaware of the counter-demo that I would have liked to see. The crowd did fill up 42nd to 43rd street and go about ten feet into the avenue. The march to Times Sq was quite vocal and spirited. I saw Louis Young of CBS news doing a report but did not turn on the TV when I returned home to see it. Interestingly, I saw a few pro-Israel people engaged in animated, but not alarming or dangerous, conversation with some of the demonstrators, and no police officers saw the need to intervene. The ignorance and racism you encountered over your kuffiyeh is somehow astounding and unsurprising at the same time.
I’m not sure if we should be encouraged or discouraged by the size of the crowd. It definitely seemed larger than the last demo I went to at the Waldorf against Friends of the IDF, but this is NYC after all.