Hundreds of people, mostly Arab-Americans, are expected to gather Saturday in downtown San Francisco to support anti-government protests in Egypt, and a large contingent of Jews representing a Bay Area peace-advocacy group will join them, one of its leaders says.
“We are deeply inspired by their push for democracy and freedom,” said Cecilie Surasky, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, based in Oakland.
Ms. Surasky said she hoped a new political order in Egypt would help speed the end of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, which her group opposes. The group’s views differ markedly from statements about the Egyptian protests coming from the Israeli government and many other Jewish-American organizations, which caution that the demonstrations in Cairo could ultimately threaten Israel.
The unrest in Egypt is merely the latest issue to pit a number of Bay Area activists against prominent Jewish organizations, as well as against some Israelis who have come to see the Bay Area as a locus for Jewish opposition to Israel’s government.
One prominent Israeli research organization, the Reut Institute, recently described the Bay Area as “one of the very few geographic locations that drive a global assault on Israel’s right to exist.” In October, the Anti-Defamation League placed Jewish Voice for Peace — which has called for an international boycott of companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories — among “the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America.”
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