Pro-Palestinian demonstrators fill plaza on S.F. waterfront

SAN FRANCISCO — In the seven days since Hamas fighters staged a vicious, coordinated attack on Israel, killing and kidnapping hundreds of people the Israeli military has responded with a deadly bombing campaign in the densely populated area of Gaza, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. 

There is another war going on in this country — a war of words — as supporters of both Israel and the Palestinian people make their case that whatever their side is doing is justified. On Saturday, a huge group of Palestinians and their supporters rallied in the plaza across from San Francisco’s Ferry Building.

“We are watching — witnessing — a genocide on television, literally!  Like, 2,000 Palestinian civilians have been slaughtered, 600 of them children,” said Wael Buhaissy with the Arab Resources and Organizing Center. “There are two million people in Gaza — 2.3 now — because most of these people were evicted forcefully from their homeland. This is the source of the conflict.”

While the world was revulsed by the barbarism of the Hamas attacks, Palestinians view their actions in a wider context, as a people resisting their occupiers. Meanwhile, Israel’s actions are being seen as an act of vengeance on a people, rather than an attack on a terrorist group and that’s the feeling of some Jewish residents as well. Sara Norman is among them.

“Israel is a state, it’s not a religion,” she said. “My Judaism is not determined by Israel. My Judaism says I know what genocide looks like and what’s happening in Gaza looks like genocide.”

“What’s going on with the Palestinians, it’s wrong.” said Berkeley resident Michael Lonergan. “They have to find a different — a different way. And that’s really more on Israel than on anyone else. They’re the ones controlling it and it’s on our government — the United States government — as well — it’s not unexpected. At a community meeting last Sunday, Tyler Gregory, who heads the Jewish Community Relations Council, warned about it.

“In May 2021, as a similar campaign of rockets was going off and Israel took care of the Hamas terrorists that were launching them, public opinion turned sharply against the IDF, against Israel. And we have to be ready for that,” he told the audience. “We know that’s going to happen so let’s make sure that we remind the world what these people did!”

Public opinion matters because both sides see the importance of U.S. support. The Israelis want it to continue, the Palestinians want it to end. As the conflict escalates so will the propaganda, mis- and disinformation around it.

“I see the news, here in America, what they’ve put out and I get really sad to see the lies that they spread,” said 13-year-old Palestinian Waseem Abusharar, 

The more sources of information that exist, the less anyone trusts them.