Scores of supporters of Israel, from Jewish residents of Atlanta to Christian preachers from Middle and rural North Georgia, gathered in front of the Israeli consulate in Midtown on Sunday.
The Atlanta rally came amid a fragile cease-fire that followed 11 days of deadly violence in Israel and in Gaza, which is ruled by the militant group Hamas.
“We’re showing our support for the right for Israel to live peacefully,” said Miriam Seidman, an Atlanta resident who came with her husband and two small daughters at the urging of their rabbi. “And to show our support with the people of Israel, with all the people of Israel, that we’re thinking about them, and we’re here for them.”
At the same building on the previous weekend, pro-Palestinian demonstrators held their own rally as the violence abroad was ongoing. In the week since, the death toll rose to an estimated 248 Palestinians, including 66 children; and 12 civilians in Israel, including two children, as well as an Israeli soldier, according to Reuters news service. The cease-fire between Hamas and Israel took hold this weekend.
Amid reports on the lopsided death toll among Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the piles of rubble there, Sunday’s rally shifted the focus to the danger faced by Israeli civilians in the conflict, and by Jews who endure antisemitism in the U.S. and elsewhere.
“I think you have to stand up for what’s right,” said Rose Schulman, also an Atlanta resident. “You have to stand up for the good in the world — not be led by propaganda.”
To those who point to the devastation in Gaza, she said, “I think I would say, we want to live in peace. We didn’t fire rockets. We didn’t build tunnels.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
The violence began two weeks ago as tensions rose over an eviction case in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The Israeli Supreme Court is set to decide whether to uphold lower court orders evicting Palestinian families from their homes there, and allow Jewish settlers to move in. The Israeli government calls it a private real estate dispute. Palestinian supporters say it’s an example of Israeli law’s unequal treatment of Palestinians and Jews.
Large numbers of Muslims who gathered for the holy month of Ramadan at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and other sites then demonstrated over the evictions, and tensions rose. As protesters threw rocks and bottles, Israeli police shot rubber bullets and eventually entered the mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam.
In response, Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group by Israel and the United States, began firing military rockets from Gaza into Israeli including the cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv — more than 4,000 rockets in the end. Israel’s air defense system caught most of them. But not all.
In return, Israel bombed densely populated Gaza, including residential buildings and medical facilities. With a warning, it destroyed the building that houses The Associated Press, a global news organization based in the United States. Israel says Hamas uses such places and Palestinian civilians as human shields for its military operations. Israel says it killed numerous Hamas leaders in the conflict and also destroyed tunnels used by Hamas.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars and numerous skirmishes since the group gained control of Gaza in 2007.
Speakers at the rally Sunday decried what they called misinformation on social media and said they support peace.
“The past two weeks have been yet another example of our everlasting struggle for our right to exist and live in peace,” Anat Sultan-Dadon, the Israeli consul general, told the crowd. Pointing out that Hamas has called for the destruction of Israel, she added that Hamas fired the rockets “intentionally targeting our civilians from within their own civilian population, brutally using them as human shields.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Another speaker, Shari Dillinger, of Christians United for Israel, said that even as terrorists fired rockets at civilians in Israel, “Nobody said anything.”
Columbus Pastor Jay Bailey cited holy authority for the gathering and Christians’ support. He proclaimed to the crowd that “we will join our voices with your voices, it will become a voice of 1,000 thunders, we will stand with you today, we will stand with you tomorrow, and we will stand with you for another 10,000 sunsets.”
After the event, out in the crowd Jody Pollack, wrapped in an Israeli flag, surveyed the milling attendees. He came out of “love for Israel,” he said.
“The misinformation campaign has been mind-boggling,” Pollack said. He said he believes that many of the Palestinian children who died were killed by Hamas rockets that fell short of Israel.
“Israel bombarded areas Hamas was firing rockets from,” he said. “We stand united with Israel. And we stand united with the truth.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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