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San Diego Rally Gets Ugly

International ANSWER has gone out of their way to demonstrate why UPFJ is spineless and why no sensible activist wants anything to do with them.
The Indepundit reports,

JAMAL KANJ, a fiery Palestinian from a group called Al-Awda, takes the podium. “We Palestinians,” he begins, “have been subjected to GENOCIDE at the hands of the Israelis for generations.” He rants on. “In 1948, they forced us out of our homes, and today we must DRIVE THE JEWS FROM PALESTINE!”
Suddenly, a middle-aged man wearing a black “F the President” T-shirt rushes the stage, screaming at Kanj, “I’m TIRED of this CRAP! You people keep bringing this up! This is supposed to be an ANTI-WAR rally, not an ANTI-ISRAEL rally!”
Kanj yells back, into the microphone. Others in the crowd stand up and join in the shouting match.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has arrived in San Diego.
Red-vested “peace monitors” converge on T-shirt Man, trying to contain this sudden outburst of dissent. They are followed closely by the San Diego Police Department, who quickly take control of the situation and lead the man away.
As T-shirt Man exits stage right, ANSWER front man Carl Muhammed enters from stage left, strutting in front of the platform and waving a large Palestinian flag. Carl and his radical Palestinian posse face down the angry Israel supporters, and the entire rally begins to descend into chaos.
In an effort to regain control of the rally, CodePink maven Barbara Jaffe-Rose takes the podium, declaring her solidarity with the Palestinian cause. “As an anti-war Jew, I support the Palestinian Right of Return, and demand the end of U.S. aid to Israel.” She attempts to lead the crowd in a cheer: “Not one penny, not one dime, U.S. out of Palestine!”
It flops.
AT LEAST A THIRD of the crowd has departed. Others remain behind only to express their disappointment and disgust…

Full story. (c/o Arieh via Harry’s Place)
Considering this is coming from the Right as well… I’m just wondering if anyone is feeling the squeeze. Hack, cough.
More on this issue from The JTA here.
[Update] More in The Forward here and here.

21 thoughts on “San Diego Rally Gets Ugly

  1. Within minutes our resident freeperlach will insist that these schnorrers represent every liberal, leftist and Democrat in the universe. Take it away, fellas….

  2. Jamal Kanj rules! I love that line “In 1948, they forced us out of our homes, and today we must DRIVE THE JEWS FROM PALESTINE!” What Jamal lacks in subtlety, he more than makes up for with straightforward honesty. And best of all, he really synthesizes the nature of the conflict in one breathless, spellbinding line. Israel belongs to whoever has the will and the eggs to take it. That’s pretty much how it’s always been and how it will always be. In 1948 the Jews had the will and the balls and now Jamal is calling on his people to do the same. I hope he fails of course, and I will do all that I can to prevent his success, but like I said, I have to admire his spirit and his honesty. So the genocide thing is complete crap, so what. It’s just a tactic … remember that line “A land without people for a people without land?” Not as grotesque, certainly more eloquent, but similiarly full of crap. Oh well. Fuck you Jamal – may the best nation win.

  3. This sort of crap is exactly why I don’t go to anti-war rallies. They’ve long since degenerated into “let’s insert my group’s pet cause while we’re at it.” This not only causes the sort of dissent we see in this article (and Waskow’s group finally parting ways from ANSWER), but also confuses the rallies’ message and, as Zionista implies above, leads the government and the public to dismiss the entire anti-war movement as irrelevant.
    Here in Canada, when the government was mulling over whether to join Bush in this misbegotten wild west adventure, I confined myself to writing my Member of Parliament. Not as dramatic as attending a rally, but at least I got to speak my mind in my own voice, undistorted by anti-semitic, anti-American haters.

  4. Exactly so. The only anti-Zionists who are not anti-Semites are the Satmarers, the Neturei Karta and such. They’re merely stupid.

  5. oh my goodness, what a surprise, the left and the palestinians have merged into a single hate/kill jews melange – let’s form a committee and discuss this!

  6. barbara’s a fucking idiot. demanding the end of US aid to israel is essentially demanding the end of israel. no one wants it as such…we need it. simple as.
    im glad the far left and far right have found a common enemy to unite over…fuckers.

  7. I don’t think it is fair to lump Barbara with this guy that claims genocide. It is quite possible to support aid conditional on getting out of the West Bank without supporting the notion that Israel has committed genocide, and without being an antizionist. Also nobody can prevent answer from showing up at these things so why focus on them?

  8. Where does it say “In 1948, they forced us out of our homes, and today we must DRIVE THE JEWS FROM PALESTINE!” ? Either al-Awda expunged that quote, or he never said it.

  9. Dameocrat should note that ANSWER doesn’t just “show up” at the protest rallies; the group is one of the primary sponsors of the rallies. Indeed, UPFJ was formed largely to try to put a more moderate face on the antiwar leadership.

  10. extremism of any kind is extremism! anti-this anti-that – extremism = hate and anger. and you can’t make peace outside unless you are at peace inside. If you Hate nazis or Hate Israelis, Hate Palastinian, Hate Hippies, Hate Fascists etc… its hate all the same no matter what side you choose to pick. If you want to make a real difference – Try Loving your fellow human beings – try loving yourself, rather than f***ing.

  11. An excellent point re “squeeze.” Let’s forget that Israel has everything to do with terrorism because of the enormous inconvenience of these landless, always-whining Palestinians. While we’re at it we can ditch ANSWER, because God knows we can always mobilize their calibre of crowd with say the respectable and sensible DLC. In fact, when was the last time Noam Chomsky won a Playgirl contest? Let’s replace him with the much less annoying Brad Pitt.
    If you’re tired of hearing about it now, what will you think of it after the next bombing? Because nobody has any good reason to expect any bombing to stop any time soon until Israel starts behaving.

  12. Because nobody has any good reason to expect any bombing to stop any time soon until Israel starts behaving.
    k&y wasn’t the cleverest bear…

  13. today crazed muslim terrorists blew up a site in Bali frequented by tourists (Bali is a primarily Hinud state) killing many. Some might think it an attempt to add Hindus to Xtains and Jews to the Muslim death list, as well as hurt the Hindus by destroying their tourist inudstry. Some would be wrong – based on knowledge gleaned from this site, the bombing is obviously caused by Israel misbehaving – it’s the Jews” fault , right boys?

  14. Jews, Christians, Hindus; New York, Jerusalem, London, Bali…Good lord. Wouldn’t it be more efficient for extremist Muslims just to build a doomsday device and blow up the entire world? Or would all those martyrs for Allah entering Paradise at once cause a virgin shortage?

  15. i am in love with zionista. brain love, mentiendes. go on girl! human beings are so retarded, we love our little flags and anthems… its all crap! colorful pieces of fabric. like the monkeys we are, we go “ooooh” when we see them. shoot fireworks off while we group-sing the anthems… boring.

  16. I just came here through Mobius’ recent link back to this article. Disturbing but not surprising story. Still, I did notice Judeosphere’s comment that you could see the text of Jamal Kanj’s full speech, and xisnotx saying that s/he didn’t see the line quoted int he article. I couldn’t find the link at all, but I did visit the original story from which Mobius took this anecdote. It’s from a very right-wing blog with links to sites like “Stop the ACLU.” Does make me wonder a bit if the “Drive the Jews from Palestine” line ever happened.
    It doesn’t matter that much, as many people have similar stories. But still, I wonder.

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