I got this email. There was going to be a vigil down at the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco. Something about stating opposition to the bombing of Gaza that was then in its third day. I figured what the hell. I left the house with my DON'T BE FUELISH sign, but forgot that on the train. For these pictures that turned out to be a good thing. It was like playing football trying to navigate the crowd on the street.

     

     

  

The police line held, but more people kept coming. People were packed in like sardines when the street suddenly emptied and we took it over. I followed along and tried to get a picture of every interesting sight.

     

        

        

  

        

     

  

     

     

     

  

Somebody told me that the two children in that picture had died in an Israeli bombing earlier that day.

     

     

     

  

        

     

        

Frank had been there from the beginning of the event. He told me that the crowd on the sidewalk had simply grown and grown, and the police had let it turn into a march to prevent something worse from happening.

  

  

  

  

        

I'd seen that drummer being led away from the Israeli consulate back near the beginning. I asked him what had happened, and he said they had thought the hammer he was using as a drumstick was a weapon, and that his drumming was considered to be "inciting a riot."

     

     

     

For some reason that woman with the GAZA across her back reminded me of the Latina I saw at another march in a shirt that said "we didn't cross the borders, the borders crossed us".

  

  

By the time we got here I was starting to think food was a good idea.

  

      

That burning Israeli flag smelled really bad. It was obviously not made of a natural fiber.

The march ended with a rally at UN Plaza. One woman read us a poem she had written while under siege in Gaza. Another told us that she was organizing a hunger strike, and urged those that wanted to get involved to find out more. Somebody else said that Cynthia McKinney had been on a boat that got rammed by the Israelis trying to take food and medical aid to the Palestinians. Several self identified Arabs said their countries were with the Palestinians in their struggle against the Israeli aggressors. There were still angry voices with urgent messages speaking when I got the feeling I needed to go.