A San Francisco supervisor made an emergency trip to SFO late Wednesday night after learning that two Palestinian men with valid visas who had traveled here to speak at interfaith events around the Bay were being denied entry to the US.

SF Supervisor Bilal Mahmood posted his "urgent message out of SFO" at 11:55 pm Wednesday, with a video standing beside two Palestinian men, whose names are being withheld out of fear of retaliation. The men reportedly flew from the West Bank and landed in San Francisco at 1 pm Wednesday, with plans to speak at several Christian churches and at the progressive Kehilla Community Synogogue in Piedmont, all of which have supported their village, which has been under attack by Israeli settlers.

Kehilla had sponsored the men's trip, and put out an alert that the men had been detained, were being denied entry to the country by US Customs and Border Protection, and their visas were being invalidated. As Mission Local reports, the men were still in custody at SFO as of 8 am Thursday and were told they were being sent back to the Middle East.

"If people are coming here with valid visas and immigration papers and even they are being turned away … what does this mean for the rest of the residents who live in San Francisco and the country?" Mahmood tells Mission Local in an interview. "This is another example of an escalating constitutional crisis in our country."

Kehilla Community Synogogue had a meet-and-greet with the men planned for Friday. Their homepage includes instructions for immigrants encountering ICE agents and a statement about being a Synogogue for Ceasefire pushing for the "unrestricted entry of humanitarian assistance in Gaza."

"Say hello to two Palestinians from the West Bank who have spoken at Kehilla services via Zoom," the event listing says. "An artist and an English teacher, they are cousins. Hear their stories of loss and steadfastness in Masafer Yatta in the hills south of Hebron."

The situation at SFO has attracted protesters, with the Chronicle reporting that around two dozen had arrived as of 10 am Thursday.

"Everything about their visit was straightforward above-board,” says immigration attorney Peter Weintraub, a member of the synogogue who was helping coordinate the visit, speaking to Mission Local. "Cultivating relationships between Christians and Jewish and Palestinian community, which seems to be a rather laudable, wonderful thing."

As Weintraub adds, in a statement to the Chronicle about the men, "They’re known, wonderful folks, coming over to connect, promote interfaith connection between Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities. They’re trying to survive and live in peace."

Per the Chronicle, Bay Area faith leaders are calling on the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to "stop targeting Palestinian travelers" and to release the men so they can continue on their interfaith exchange mission.

Local organizer and activist Nadia Rahman wrote about a recent anti-Arab hate incident she experienced in front of City Hall on her way to speak to the Board of Supervisors about the rise in anti-Arab hate in San Francisco.

In some recent Instagram posts, local Palestinian Pakistani American organizer and activist Nadia Rahman shared details about a hate incident she experienced on the steps of City Hall, in which an older woman insulted her keffiyeh, calling it “trash” and telling her to "go back to your country." Rahman had been on her way to speak during public comment at the Board of Supervisors meeting in support of a resolution recognizing Arab American Heritage Month and to emphasize the sharp rise in anti-Arab hate fueled by the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide in Gaza.

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A post shared by Nadia Rahman 駱雯 (@nadiarahmansf)

She immediately reported the hate incident to the Mayor’s office, her district Supervisor Connie Chan, CAIR, AROC, the California Civil Rights Department, and the City Hall Sheriff’s department. In an email to Supervisor Chan and Mayor Lurie's administration, Rahman called for stronger public support for San Francisco’s Arab community, emphasizing that this wasn’t an isolated event.

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Rahman shared other recent examples of hate incidents reported by Palestinian American residents, including harassment for displaying Palestinian flags and wearing cultural symbols:

Two days ago, a district 8 resident reached out to me to share a series of hate incidents that happened to her due to her Palestinian American identity and Palestinian flag hanging outside her home and asked for advice on where to go and what to do.”

One month ago, a district 1 resident reached out to me to share that she and her partner experienced a hate incident at a Jack in the Box here in the district because her partner was wearing a keffiyeh.

Rahman is now calling on San Francisco’s leaders to publicly and explicitly condemn both anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. She emphasized that public support is critical for the Arab American community, especially as many feel invisible and abandoned amid escalating violence at home and abroad.

My ask to these public officials since this hate incident occurred is to publicly condemn both 1) anti-Arab racism and 2) anti-Palestinian racism in San Francisco. Name it and condemn it explicitly. The community needs a public condemnation of these forms of hate to feel seen, and to be called in to report these incidents.

Public officials base their policymaking on data and a majority of hate incidents and crimes against Arab and Muslim people go unreported. They will not take action unless we force them to; the data helps immensely in that regard.

Image pulled from Instagram video

A queer- and trans-led alternate march, in solidarity with the Palestinian people, is planned for Sunday in the Castro, dubbed 'No Pride in Genocide.'

Alternative protests and marches are not new to Pride Sunday, and this year, there will be one focused on the war in Gaza. It will start at 1 pm at Church and Market streets. It's called 'No Pride in Genocide,' and it follows events of the same name that took place in March.

The name Queer & Trans March for Palestinian Liberation also seems to have been circulated as well.

The march is being led by the Brass Liberation Orcestra, Jewish Voice for Peace, and QUIT!

As Bay Area-based Palestinian African trans drag artist Mama Ganuush, who is helping organize the march, told Prism this week, "I don’t feel safe, and I don’t feel proud to walk in Pride as a Palestinian. Me walking in Pride means normalizing Pride as a true protest, which this Pride is not."

Mx. Yaffa, a trans Palestinian poet and activist and executive director of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, goes even further, telling Prism, "The biggest threat to my existence right now in the Bay Area as a queer and trans Palestinian is not cis, straight right-wing leaders, it’s actually Pride councils. Until that is accounted for, we can’t actually be on the same page because you’ve been investing in my genocide essentially for decades, and you haven’t even stopped."

Organizers of SF Pride are taking this in stride, saying that they support everyone expressing themselves on Pride.

"It’s a responsibility we take very seriously to uplift and affirm marginalized people. We respect everyone’s right to have a voice," says Nguyen Pham, the president of SF Pride's board, speaking to the Chronicle.

Of the main SF Pride Parade, Pham tells the paper, "We are laser-focused on joy this year – we are taking an affirmative stance against all the hate coming at our people."

Mama Ganuush also spoke to the Chronicle about the pro-Palestinian march, referring to the increasingly corporate nature of the Pride Parade, and saying, "We’re providing a space for queer folks to truly express themselves and express their need for liberation, versus the SF Pride march that is pretty much sponsored by companies like U.S. Bank and Amazon. The action on Sunday is to bring back Pride to its roots, as a protest."

Another alternative to the Pride Parade, the People's March, happened on Pride Sunday the past couple of years, but this year was moved to the previous weekend, and already happened on Polk Street last Sunday.

Top image: A protest group holds up a flag that says "we stand with queer Palestinians" during Bangkok Pride on June 01, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

The SF Board of Supervisors passed that resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict, and the 8-3 vote set off utter bedlam in the board’s City Hall chambers.

You know it was going to be a chaotic donnybrook at today’s SF Board of Supervisors vote on Supervisor Dean Preston’s resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, considering that at yesterday’s committee hearing on the matter, shoving matches broke out, leading to Twitter videos accusing opposing sides of “chants for the annihilation of nine million residents of Israel” and “ZIONIST ATTACKS ARAB YOUTH.” Such are the emotions after the October 7 Hamas attacks killed 1,200 Isrealis, and Israel's response has since killed an estimated 23,000 in Gaza.

And a chaotic donnybrook it was. Even though Supervisor Ahsha Safai called for a moment of silence before discussion, it did not stay silent for long. A rowdy and mostly pro-Palestine crowd in the chamber shouted down Supervisor Rafael Mandelman when he said was voting no, leading Board President Aaron Peskin to scream at them “Let us do our jobs and chill out!” And when the board did eventually pass the ceasefire resolution 8-3 (with Supervisors Catherine Stefani, Matt Dorsey, and Mandelman voting against it), Peskin again hollered “We’ve got work to do,” as the crowd whooped it up and celebrated for a solid 60 seconds, before Peskin yelled “Recess! Recess!” to calm the place down.

It does seem odd for the SF supervisors to be voting on this, as one cannot imagine that Hamas, "Bibi" Netanyahu, or President Biden gives a tinker’s cuss what the SF Board of Supervisors does. But it meant something to the supervisors. The measure’s sponsor Dean Preston said “we’ve never seen this level of engagement and passion” on a previous board vote, and Supervisor Ahsha Safai added “This is the most gut-wrenching issue that I have dealt with on the Board of Supervisors. I have never received more calls, more emails, more text messages, more DMs, more people stopping me on the street.”

Preston said it was remarkable “For people to wait five hours, lined up outside this building and throughout our halls, to come in and talk for one minute” in public comment sessions.

But Preston’s measure did not pass as written. What passed was essentially a Peskin re-write, as Peskin added a ton of amendments, which he described as making the bill “a one-page resolution” (though it takes him a full one minute and 40 seconds to describe the allegedly shortened version.) Peskin’s amendments are described below starting at the 2:05 mark, calling for a ceasefire, humanitarian aid, and the release of the hostages (plus notably, they do contain a condemnation of Hamas, but do not call for Hamas’s removal).

Chants of “Ceasefire now!” from outside the chamber could be heard as supervisors spoke, particularly when Stefani said “You cannot call for a ceasefire without calling for the surrender and removal of Hamas and the return of all hostages.” Stefani added, “I don’t know how you have a ceasefire with a terrorist organization who has recently said it would commit October 7 over and over again if it could.”

Supervisor Myrna Melgar seemed to realize the apparent triviality of an SF Board of Supervisors resolution, but she defended debating it anyway.

“We are a local government in San Francisco. We don’t have the power to control actions of the Israeli Defense Forces, or Hamas, or the U.S. government,” Melgar said before the vote. “The city of San Francisco does not send money to Israel.”

But she added, “We can and must acknowledge the close ties between our community and Palestinians and Israelis and those who profoundly suffer in the Middle East. We must speak up for civilians who are suffering horrific violence and dislocation.”

Related: SF Supervisor Dean Preston Introduces Resolution Calling for Ceasefire In Gaza, Release of Hostages [SFist]

Image via SFGovTV

An unknown number of high school students in the San Francisco Unified School District are staging a walkout today in protest of the violence in the Middle East, and saying they demand a ceasefire.

The walkout was organized by the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), which put out the notice below on social media, also announcing a 10 a.m. press conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall.

The text of the walkout notice focuses on Israel's attacks in Gaza, and blames an Israeli airstrike for the killing of "at least 500 people" at a hospital in Gaza Tuesday — something that Israeli intelligence has blamed on a misfired rocket by the Hamas-affiliated group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. U.S. intelligence has said, based on preliminary findings, that it supports Israel's intelligence, and in a speech President Biden on Wednesday blamed the explosion on "the other side."

The walkout is being called on a national level, but so far appears to be centered in San Francisco.

AROC tells the Chronicle that students from Lincoln, John O’Connell, Galileo, Balboa, Lowell, Washington, and June Jordan high schools are expected to participate in the walkout, along with students from City College of San Francisco.

The Jewish News of Northern California refers to AROC as "a San Francisco-based activist group known for its strident criticism of Israel," and they report, "The planned walkout has raised concerns among Bay Area Jews who fear the event will make Jewish and pro-Israel students feel isolated and vulnerable."

A group of 70 parents of public school students in SF signed an open letter to SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne on Tuesday, expressing concern about the walkout. And as one parent, Amanda Kahn Fried, tells the Jewish News, "Walkouts like this disrupt any opportunity for adults to help students navigate this." And, Kahn Fried adds, students with differing sympathies need help to be able to discuss these issues. "They’re sitting in the same class. And these are issues adults haven’t been able to solve," Kahn Fried says.

AROC has published a set of talking points for students to use if they end up speaking to the media. These include student demands such as, "We stand against the brutal bombardment of besieged Gaza, to demand an immediate ceasefire, and to break the silence on Palestine at our schools."

"Safety remains our top priority," says Superintendent Matt Wayne in a statement.

The SFUSD has said that students who participate will be marked absent.

"The youth of Gaza deserve to live full lives and to live in freedom and dignity,” says Lowell High student Helena Awwad, in a statement, per the Chronicle. "We plan to raise our voices to call for an end to our government’s complicity in Israel’s crimes, for the freedom of all people, and so we call on students around the nation to join us this Wednesday."

As of 10:55 a.m., NBC Bay Area reporter Marianne Favro said that 140 Lowell High School students were participating in the protest.

A video shot over the weekend in San Francisco, possibly after the large pro-Palestinian march up Market Street on Saturday, purports to show a guy — apparently quite intoxicated — leaning into the window of another guy's car and harassing him, he says because of his pro-Palestine sweatshirt.

The video was posted to TikTok, and the poster claims he was trying to pick up his girlfriend when "these two racist dudes started harassing me." The interaction caught on video doesn't make a lot of sense — the guy outside the car, identified by some on social media as being employed by local research and financial data firm PitchBook, seems to be reaching into the car, says something that sounds like "Views are what's happening," and when the driver starts rolling up his window the guy begins yanking at the glass as if to try to break it.

As the car pulls away, the guy can be seen kicking the exterior of the car. A second man is seen outside, smiling sort of menacingly and waving. The creator of the video says that the aggression was due to anti-Arab racism, and his sweatshirt can not be seen in the video.

@clarissabitar Unhinged #fyp #arabtiktok #arab #racism ♬ original sound - Clarissa Bitar

We can't confirm any of the circumstances or individuals in the video, but SFist is reposting it in the interest of public dialogue about some of the toxicity of the conversations happening around the current conflict in the Middle East.

The video has received over 960,000 views on TikTok, and countless more on X/Twitter in reposts.

PitchBook, for its part, responded to messages on X/Twitter on Monday suggesting that it had fired the individual who was seen in the video after its own investigation.

"PitchBook does not tolerate violence or harassment of any kind," the company said. "The individual in the video is no longer with the company, and the actions in the video do not represent PitchBook."

On Sunday, San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins tweeted, and then deleted, a statement that referred to Saturday's march as a "pro-Hamas" event. She was tweeting in the context of some anti-Israel graffiti encouraging violence that appeared on some Market Street storefronts after the march, which is being investigated.

Jenkins later sidestepped fully apologizing for the tweet, saying on Monday, "members of the Muslim and Arab community reached out to me expressing concerns about the tweet and how it may be interpreted. I listened & understand their concerns & as a result, deleted the tweet. I do not support violence."

Previously: Anti-Jewish Graffiti Appears on Market Street Following Pro-Palestinian March

Following a major outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza over the weekend, pro-Palestinian rallies occurred Sunday in multiple U.S. cities which were met by groups supporting Israel, leading in some cases to skirmishes.

Here in San Francisco, one such rally drew hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the Israeli consulate on Montgomery Street on Sunday — NBC Bay Area puts the number in the "thousands" — and they were met by a reportedly smaller group of pro-Israel counter-protestors who allegedly threw eggs at the crowd.

The chants included "Free Palestine!" and "One, two, three, four, occupation no more!" as ABC 7 reports.

Palestinian supporters say that the violent uprising by Hamas militants comes in response to years of Israeli aggression and the 16-year blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Sunday's demonstration was organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement and the Arab Resources and Outreach Center, as the Chronicle reports, with the aim of stopping U.S. aid to Israel and ending the blockade.

Supporters of Israel say that the ground and air attack by Hamas was an act of terrorism aimed entirely at innocent civilians. An estimated 600 to 700 people were killed, though the numbers remain preliminary — and Saturday's attack was one of the most significant ever undertaken by Hamas, with comparisons being drawn to 9/11.

Israeli air strikes on Gaza in response to the attacks are estimated to have killed 400 so far, as the Chronicle reports.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken referred to the attack as terrorism in a statement.

"There is never any justification for terrorism," Blinken said. "We stand in solidarity with the government and people of Israel, and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks."

Sunday's rally and counter-protest in SF ended largely peacefully, with police intervening to try to keep that peace. NBC Bay Area reports that there were no physical altercations between the two sides.

That was not the case everywhere. As the Associated Press reports, a similar rally and counter-protest occurred Sunday in New York City, where "a skirmish broke out between opposing demonstrators near the United Nations compound."

Palestinian Americans also staged rallies outside Israeli consulate buildings in Chicago and Atlanta.

Top image: Historic file photo of pro-Palestinian demonstrators demonstrating against Israel's military offensive against Palestine and Lebanon July 13, 2006 in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In a continued effort to fetishize the "game of chess" that is Palestinian/Israeli relations, UC Berkeley students staged a harrowing--harrowing!--border checkpoint commemorating the anniversary of the Nakba (i.e., "Arabic for "Catastrophe," the Palestinian name for the founding of Israel in May of 1948").The fake security checkpoint happened on campus at Sather Gate yesterday.on May 7, 2008.

But in all seriousness: good job, kids. This almost makes us miss our days at old the ala mater. And it looks like you all had loads of fun.

Zombietime caught all the gaiety. Check him out for more images here.