IF YOU WILL IT, DUDE, IT IS NO DREAM: Ever since last night's Israel Inspires rally at Rutgers University, I've been continuously wishing that I'd made a sign with the subject of this post on it.
But aside from that, the rally was a tremendous success. The kickoff of a conference meant to counteract Charlotte Kates' all-but-canceled "Solidarity" event this weekend, the rally attracted a reported 5,000 attendees and such speakers as New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, Senators Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, and several students and local politicians. While most of the speakers merely shared the same generic platitudes, Rep. Davis was particularly eloquent, expressing strong support for Israel while speaking of the contributions that Jews made to the 1960s civil rights movement.
Also on hand were about 100 counter-demonstrators, holding up signs with "Israel Inspires Racism" and the like. Even though the pro-Pali contingent was separated from a far-off back corner of the main rally by three fences and about 50 feet, several attendees of the Israel rally (primarily Orthodox Jewish teenage badasses) tried to mix it up with the demonstrators. When I arrived at the "battleground" I saw that the Ortho teens had turned their backs to the anti-Zionists; "what," I asked, "are we mooning them?"
Its' unknown whether or not Little Red Kaffiyah Hood herself showed up to the festivities, but Ms. Kates is likely knee-deep in planning for this weekend's conference, which as of now is taking place at an off-campus hotel and will feature a keynote address by (I'm not making this up) Lynne Stewart, the left-wing lawyer who was indicted last year for giving material aid to her client, 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheik Omar "The Blind Sheik" Abdel-Rahman.
Our buddy Abe Greenhouse, the guy who threw a pie at Natan Sharansky, was quoted in the Newark Star Ledger's account as saying that he and others were "patrolling their own pro-Palestine crowd to weed out neo-Nazis or any anti-Semitic signs." I guess that's the difference between the two sides in this debate- Zionists don't have to worry about Nazis showing up to join their rallies.