Rowdy voices against state violence in the Middle East : Houston Indymedia

I woke up late, tried unsuccesfully to get my camera to work and went to the protest that was called by old white marxists and peaceniks to take place in front on the Israeli consulate, which appears to be in an office building on Weslyan just south of the Edwards movie theater.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a large crowd of folks (I'm bad with numbers, upwards of a hundred, maybe 125?) who were predominatly middle eastern and predominatly young. While it was the fairly typical "stand on the sidewalk and hold your signs so traffic can see them" protest it seemed much more vital and exiting due to the sheer energy of the young protestors with Palestinian and Lebanese Flags. There was a large contingent of teens and twenty somethings with fairly standard american fashion; abercrombie and fitch, spiked hair, some of the women wearing headscarves. These folks moved back and forth along the sidewalk, chanting and screaming, talking to friends and while motivated by the dire immediacy of the violence in the middle east they seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was a welcome relief from the typical peace protests where I know everyone and they are just kinda boring.

The chants were mostly really simple, the most common was a call and response of "Stop bombing Palestine, Stop bombing Lebanon" that would be repeated dozens of time over and over again. I also hear "Occupation is a crime from Iraq to Palestine" and "No Justice No Peace"

I ran into some folks who had come down from Austin including Jews Against the Occupation (I was hoping they were from here), and Austin IMC, who were surprised to find we had an Indymedia chapter here, to which I responded, "yeah we have the best IMC in Texas." I must be really annoying

The response from cars was very intresting, you had the usual people pretending not to see us, people gawking, and I'd say a small majority of peace signs, thumbs up and honks over middle fingers, headshaking and threats to injure our families.

A moment of some excitement was when a car being driven by a woman inches from the curb who appeared to be hassaling the crowd (which I saw) somehow lead to HPD arresting someone apparently (I didn't see anything) for making physical contact with the car. this lead to a lot of people chanting "let him go" and "Cops here, bombs there, US out of everywhere." The cops quickly summoned police on horseback from some mystical stable and used metal baracades to block off the protest from the street. ACLU legal observers were present and I belive they talked to whoever got busted. If anyone knows the deal with this please post a comment.

There was an intresting moment towards the end where the sponsors and career activists gathered in a circle to give speeches and hushed the people chanting, many of those silenced decided to move south towards 59 and heckle the lone counterprotestor with an Israeli flag on the other side of the street.

Oh, it was also really hot, I was on the verge of getting dehydrated, and finished my evening by going to the Edwards cinema and watching Pirates of the Carribean with a friend.