Here are a couple of pictures of pro-terrorist demonstrators on Saturday, August 13, 2006. These lads were on their way to Lafayette Park, right across the street from the White House. I was eating a picnic lunch with my older three kids in front of the Reagan Building's fountain on 13th Street.
The sign is from International ANSWER, a communist front group that constantly organizes marches and demonstrations.
That's a Palestinian flag, as you probably know already. When the flag guy saw me snapping a picture, he asked if he could tell me why he was there.
"Oh, I know why you're here," I said. "You're here to defend the terrorists of Hezbollah."
"We are here to protest the illegal Israeli invasion of Lebanon...."
"Who started it?" I interrupted.
Flag guy looked startled for a moment, then continued. "The Israelis occupied Lebanon for 18 years...."
"Yeah, but they left six years ago. Who started firing the rockets?"
Not listening, he continued his rote speech. "They are killing civilians..."
"Who fired the rockets?"
"...acting as occupiers..."
"Who fired the rockets?"
"...illegal war..."
"You can't even answer a straight question," I said, getting more frustrated. "Why did the Israelis invade Lebanon?"
"Israel has been killing women and children in Lebanon...."
"No." Looking back to make sure my kids were still out of earshot, I replied, "They have been killing Hezbollah. And I hope they kill every single one of them. Every single one of those bastard terrorists."
Flag guy continued to spew the same lines he memorized on the trip from Detroit. (That's a guess, but his friend was wearing a Detroit Tigers cap.) I shook my head and walked back to the fountain, convinced that no meaningful dialogue was possible.
Later, I heard that the demonstration had attracted 30,000 people. That's a risible falsehood, unless the demonstration spilled over from Lafayette Park to the adjoining streets, or maybe the Ellipse. The park just isn't big enough. When I worked around the corner, my Web development team used to have meetings in the park when the weather was nice. (It wasn't a big team -- we only needed a couple of park benches.) You'd have to stack people like cordwood to get 30,000 protesters in there. Check out this satellite map to get an idea of the park's scale.
Well done Eric. And you've done a better job of describing what ANSWER is than the Washington Post. Granted that may not be setting the bar very high.
Love to have been there for that. Pretty ballsy to do a rally like that in DC. My question for the press is if we did a pro-Israel for the continued ground war would they glorify us? Sheesh
And that's why I take all "demonstrations" with a grain of salt.
I agree with your sentiments 100% -- I'm sick of people casting Israel as the Big Bad Wolf, even though the Israelis have been living almost continually under the gun (literally) ever since 1948... The kidnapping of the two soldiers was the straw that broke the camel's back. I hope they continue to kick Hezbollah's you-know-what, and send them crawling back into the slime they came from.
Flag guy continued to spew the same lines he memorized on the trip from Detroit. (That's a guess, but his friend was wearing a Detroit Tigers cap.)
Who else but someone from Detroit would be caught sporting a Tigers cap?
While I thought Israel's reaction in this recent episode was disproportionate at times, there is not much one can debate about the "who started it" question. Hopefully the ceasefire will hold and some form of international force will get in there and remove Hezb. I saw an Israeli rep on Fox over the weekend who was very positive and made a great presentation of Israel's position. The Lebanese rep was not as good (and, as is typical, they tried to drag resolution of every greivance with Israel into the resolution of the current crisis - along the "give an inch take a mile" line).