Israel and Palestinian supporters face off in downtown San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO -- The nation of Israel is still reeling from a series of surprise attacks across the country by the militant Palestinian organization Hamas and reaction in the Bay Area was swift.
The sudden, bloody, coordinated attacks on Israel by Hamas touched off a conflict that Israel's ambassador said is nowhere close to being contained.
"This is war," said Michael Warzog on CBS's Face the Nation. "We have to fight that war and win it. We have to destroy the Hamas war machine. And, in war, we have to fight it."
On Sunday afternoon, Palestinian supporters were locked in a raucous counterprotest with Israeli loyalists in downtown San Francisco. Earlier in the day, members of the Jewish community met at a synagogue where city leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, condemned the murder and kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli men, women and children in Saturday's surprise attack.
"Terrorism is about instilling terror, instilling fear, undermining your motivation to fight back, taking away your hope. But that will not happen," Pelosi said. "This assault on these children, on these grandmoms, on these families is something that takes us to a different threshold of how we deal with this subject."
"Well, the first priority for Israel is getting the terrorists out," said Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council. "The second priority is rescuing these hostages in a harrowing situation and then we must be prepared and be resilient for the campaign that follows inside of Gaza."
That campaign of retribution has already begun with Israel bombing targets inside Gaza, including a 14-story apartment building.
Wassim Hage is a Palestinian supporter in San Francisco who calls Gaza the world's largest open-air prison where people are not allowed to leave and for whom electricity, medicine, food and water can be shut off at a moment's notice.
"You cannot keep two million people in a cage and expect them not to try to escape, not to try to free themselves," he said.
Hage, who operates the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in the Mission District, is reluctant to even call the attacks an act of terrorism.
"People have a right to resist their occupiers. People have a right to freedom. People have a right to movement and right not to be caged," he said.
Back at the synagogue, Israeli consul General Marco Sermoneta said Hamas may have underestimated the resolve of the Israeli people.
"We suffered a heavy blow yesterday and the numbers are almost unfathomable. But we shall prevail because we have no other option," he said. "The battle will be long and it will be hard. But we will win it."
Gene Gogerman listened to the speakers. As a Jewish American, he wondered if Israelis understand how much life might change for them now.
"They've lived for a long time now, in part, with this fantasy that they're protected, that they can prevent this sort of thing and they couldn't," Gogerman said. "And so, how do you go on doing what you're doing for 50 years when this is the end result? I don't know."
No one knows what will happen now or how ugly things might get. The Middle East has always been a powder keg and now it feels like a fuse has been lit.
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