A first person account I got from Columbus, Ohio indicates there was some debate over whether or not to burn an Israeli flag.
Tom
Carl Remick wrote:
> >Yesterday (Fri., Oct. 6), we had a demonstration in Columbus, Ohio
> >against the Israeli massacre & repression of Palestinians. The demo
> >was organized by a local group Coalition for Palestine, and about 200
> >people came. The anger and frustration of diasporic Palestinians
> >(against Israel, against the U.S. government, against the unjust
> >compromise made by the Palestinian Authority, against the local
> >police) boiled over, and the protest was very militant (the local
> >news programs, however, gave only 5-10 seconds to the event).
> >
> >Any news of protests elsewhere?
> >
> >Yoshie
>
> [You bet. See story from today's NY Times below. I encountered this
> demonstration while walking from my office to Penn Station last night. It
> was quite impassioned and, I believe, unprecedented for New York City.]
>
> Times Square Marchers Protest Killing of Palestinians
>
> By Amy Waldman
>
> Several thousand demonstrators gathered south of Times Square during the
> evening rush yesterday to protest the killing of dozens of Palestinians by
> Israeli soldiers in recent days and what they characterized as blind
> American support for Israel.
>
> They said they wanted Americans to hear of their pain and to question
> Washington's financial support for a government that, as one protester had
> scrawled on a sign, uses "missiles against rocks." They said they wanted to
> force elected officials and candidates for office to acknowledge their
> political power.
>
> On countless posters they hoisted the photocopied image of 12-year- old
> Muhammad al-Durrah in his father's arms, fatally wounded in the crossfire in
> Gaza between Israeli and Palestinian forces.
>
> In the Mideast, the death toll from eight days of violence rose to 77
> yesterday. The fighting began after a highly publicized visit by Ariel
> Sharon, the Israeli right-wing opposition leader, to a holy mosque in the
> Old City of Jerusalem. Palestinians say the visit was a challenge to peace.
> Israeli officials say the Palestinians used the visit as a pretext for an
> uprising.
>
> Yesterday's protest in Times Square showed how the Mideast situation is
> touching New York City. Over the last week, the police have reported several
> possible bias attacks linked to the renewed tensions, although local Arab
> and Jewish leaders have taken pains to urge people to avoid violence.
>
> Yesterday's protest was largely peaceful, although two people, Nael N. F.
> Msallam and Mahmoud Abedalgader, were charged with reckless endangerment and
> public disorder, said Officer Guy Braun, a police spokesman.
>
> Marchers chanted "We're Muslims, we're Americans and we vote," a message
> Mason Mohamed, a 24-year-old college student born in Yemen, said he was
> particularly eager to send to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic
> candidate for Senate from New York.
>
> "I don't approve of Hillary Clinton backing up Israel just to get votes," he
> said. "She doesn't know Arabs, Muslims vote. I do, and I'm not going to vote
> for her."
>
> To express sorrow over children killed in the Mideast violence, children
> were brought to the rally. They held flowers, sat under police barricades,
> and pressed forward to share their thoughts. Several said they would not
> forget the image of Muhammad slumped in his father's arms, an image shown
> frequently on television and in the nation's newspapers this week.
>
> "From the inside, I feel very bad; the kid who got shot, I feel awful," said
> Diana Awawdeh, 10. "I felt someone was shooting part of my heart."
>
> Diana and her brother had come with their mother, Abeer Awawdeh, 35, a
> homemaker and mother of six, from Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Ms. Awawdeh, a
> Palestinian, said, "We want Clinton and Albright to announce on TV that they
> are standing with us," referring to President Clinton and Secretary of State
> Madeleine K. Albright. "Especially Clinton: he is hiding from us."
>
> She and her neighbors and their children had crowded by the dozens onto the
> train to ride to Manhattan. The point, she and others said, was to show
> solidarity with Palestinians and unity to the world.
>
> Yusef Al-Abad, a 28-year-old aeronautical engineer, said: "Every Palestinian
> has a goal in their lifetime to eventually go back to Palestine. We want to
> show Israel that we will unite. We will unite one day soon in Israel, just
> like in Times Square."
>
> [end]
>
> Carl
>
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