Hundreds rally in San Francisco Sunday in support of Israel
SAN FRANCISCO -- Even as bombs continue to fall in Gaza, the fight for public opinion is being played out in public squares around the Bay Area and the nation. Sunday was a day for supporters of Israel to speak out, as they say they feel left alone by the world community to deal with an atrocity that has yet to end.
To those on either side of the conflict, where the blame lies seems obvious but, for the rest of the world, it's not so clear. The murders, rapes and kidnappings committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 were shocking in their barbarity. Then Israel began its siege on Gaza and, after three weeks of bombing in civilian areas, public opinion has been swinging the other way.
Much of the world is appalled by the death toll of Palestinian civilians in Israel's pursuit of Hamas but many in the Jewish community have closed ranks around the only homeland they feel they have.
"We are united! It is horrible that it took a tragedy of this magnitude for all of us to wake up and realize that we need each other!" said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, to hundreds of Israel supporters at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Gardens.
The Sunday afternoon rally was a gathering of people who feel very alone in their struggle against terrorism. They said the atrocities didn't end on October 7, not with more than 200 kidnapped men, women and children being held hostage by Hamas.
Adi Schacker, a Jewish Israeli living in Oakland, held a sign with pictures of abducted family members and wondered why so many don't understand Israel's rage over it.
"It is amazing to me that, in times like that, we are still so lonely," she said. "In times like that we still feel like we have to explain our suffering and this barbaric act."
Some in the gathering said it is the keeping of the hostages that is driving Israel's violent response.
"Nobody likes war. Nobody wants to see this," said Johanna Meckel, project manager with a group called Stand With Us. "But when you have hostages that have been taken from Israel and they're being held right now by a terrorist organization, what do you want Israel to do? If you had your child held as a hostage in Gaza by a terrorist organization, you would not be calling for a ceasefire."
Marion Trau agreed as he waved an Israeli flag while wearing a shirt proclaiming, "I Stand With Israel."
"Well, they're bombing buildings but not indiscriminately," Trau said. "They're bombing buildings because they know there's people hiding under it and those people are vicious, they're bad people, they're terrorists. They came into Israel, they did what they did and now we need to seek our revenge. We need to defeat those people."
As Israel prepares to launch a ground assault on Gaza, even those in the American government have questions. On CBS Face the Nation, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told Margaret Brennan that it is up to Israel to control its own military operation.
"We will continue to ask the hard questions, Margaret, that we would ask ourselves in a military operation like this. What, exactly, are the objectives? How are the means matched to the objectives and how will this evolve over time?" Sullivan said.
"What I will say is that the Israeli public is united in this not being able to happen again," said JCRC's Tyler Gregory. "And so they're looking for their government to restore the confidence of the people that Hamas cannot be able to carry out an attack like this in the future."
Fighting terrorism is hard enough but, with Hamas buried deep inside a civilian population, any effort to remove them is bound to look pretty ugly to the rest of the world, leaving Israel feeling very much alone.
