Thousands March for Palestine in Second Weekly Demonstration

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar / Pro Bono Photo

On Saturday Oct. 14, San Francisco saw a second demonstration in support of Palestine. At over three thousand people, it was larger than that of the previous week. The action started with a rally at Justin Herman Plaza next the Embarcadero. With intense drumming and many flags, the demonstrators marched down Market Street, looped around, and then returned up Market Street for another rally at Justin Herman Plaza.

The Hamas attack caught Israel by surprise, defeating its much vaunted security systems and military and handing the country its most devastating day since its founding in 1948. With the mutual slaughter ongoing, hostility between Palestinians and Israelis has become even more extreme, if possible. "They murdered babies in their cribs" screamed an Israeli. "That's horrible, and do you think that history began last week? Israelis have been murdering and driving Palestinians out of their homes since 1948." replied a Palestinian.

The Middle East has been upended. Up until the Hamas attack Israeli prime minister Netanyahu was working to normalize relations with the Arab monarchies and doing all he could to increase hostility between the US and Iran. It was working out pretty well for him. Saudi Arabia was getting closer to trade formal recognition of Israel in exchange for nuclear technology from the US, for "peaceful" purposes, or course, and other Arab monarchies were looking at the "Abraham accords", a Trump inspired bribe. Accordingly, the Palestinians would fade into the background as Israel continued to dispossess them.

Nuclear technology to the Saudis would cause Iran to resume (or intensify) work on nuclear weapons, vastly increasing US - Iran tensions, perhaps even a war, one of Netanyahu long cherished goals. A couple of bumps in the roads have, however, appeared. The US and Iran had agreed to trade hostages Iran held for unfreezing $6 billions dollars of Iranian money that the US controlled. Also, the US was having a hard time destroying the Iranian economy. Iran was staying afloat by selling oil to the Chinese and weapons to the Russians.

With the Hamas attack the US initially said that Iran was not directly involved but has now, however, changed its mind, saying that Iran "may" have been involved, consequently re-freezing the $6 billion dollars after getting the hostages back. Iran is beyond livid. An Israeli engineered provocation?

Netanyahu is now in trouble. The Hamas disaster, showing the poor state of Israel's much vaunted security apparatus and military, happened on Netanyahu's watch. His reply to the attack is to accelerate the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by wiping out the Gaza strip with no restrictions on how many Palestinians are slaughtered. Hence the air war on Gaza civilians and the "evacuation" orders, gambling that popular opinion in the US and Europe will allow this. The problem is that as that the slaughter continues, sympathy in the Arab world for the Palestinians is increasing. While Arab monarchies have shown a willingness to sell out the Palestinians, Arab public opinion supports the Palestinians and the monarchs will have to accommodate this. For starters, Saudi - Israeli "rapprochement" is now off the table.

We see Netanyahu hesitating to start a ground war against Gaza. Israel's air power and massive superiority in armor would be of little use fighting in the rubble of Gaza. The fight would be long and bloody, increasing sympathy for the Palestinians. With the issue of Palestine front and center again, Netanyahu has to change the focus.

While he still has the fullthroated support of the US he might try to engineer his goal of a US - Iran war. The signs are ominous. The US has now moved two aircraft carriers, including its biggest, into the Mediterranean from where it could attack Iran. If Netanyahu succeeds in dragging the US into a Mideast war against Iran, it would become a regional war, an Israeli struggle for survival, and threaten worldwide US dominance in that part of the world. The US fights throughout the world to maintain its dominance and has never hesitated to attack any challenger that is not a major world power. Can Biden save us?

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