Driving down 3rd Ave. yesterday we were stopped by a demonstration. Hundreds of people, many of them carrying Palestinian flags, were leaving the plaza of the federal courthouse and heading east on Broward Boulevard. Policemen blocked traffic and, at Federal Highway, the demonstrators, no doubt fearing they were headed to the Downtown Jewish Center Chabad a couple blocks down on Broward.
It was refreshing to see a political demonstration downtown, in a city that often seems more interested in boats than in world affairs (the boat show was taking place a few miles away) yet it was depressing too: pro-Palestinian demonstrations are often not just pro-Palestinian, they are also anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic. Like much of the world, the demonstrators were concerned about the people of Gaza, but what about the hostages being held by Hamas? Are their lives unimportant because they’re citizens of Israel, the country viewed as the oppressor? Or, more sinisterly, because they’re Jewish? It would be incredibly refreshing if people could look beyond politics and focus on humanity.
