Immediately after the April 20 Palestinian solidarity rally in front of the Capitol, Subhiya Idilbi emailed friends and family in Palestine. Idilbi, who lives in Washington DC on a temporary spousal visa, said "we can't trust the American or Israeli news media, so I had to tell them right away what happened here today. Fifty thousand people in the U.S. chanting 'Free Palestine' and 'End the Occupation' will not make it onto the news here or in Israel."

At first glance, U.S. local news coverage of the weekend's and demonstrations in D.C. seems more balanced than protesters have come to expect. Numbers of participants at protests are often disputed, with activists claiming a much higher turnout than the police report to the media. However, in an article for the April 21 edition of The Washington Post, reporter Manny Fernandez cites police estimate of 75,000 demonstrators, the same number claimed by protesters. (The Baltimore Sun, in an April 21 article by Ellen Gamerman, quoted D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey putting the number closer to 30,000 to 50,000.)

In addition, many anti-globalization and other activists feel that the news media portrays demonstrators at any demonstration as a highly fragmented group, with individuals supporting a variety of competing fringe causes. However, both The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun presented Saturday's rally as the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration ever held in the U.S., acknowledging the solidarity between all those who were in D.C. over the weekend, whether to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the IMF and World Bank, the School of the Americas, the so-called "war on terrorism," or all of the above.

Yet both papers played down the unity between the various organizations and coalitions involved. The Baltimore Sun printed, "protesters accusing those institutions of creating misery and debt in the Third World were drowned out by pro-Palestinian crowds attacking U.S. financial and diplomatic support of Israel," as if the two struggles were mutually exclusive and competing for attention. That article went on to say, "Still, the pro-Palestinian message alienated some demonstrators who might otherwise have come out to protest the World Bank and the IMF."

Similarly, the lead paragraph of the Post's story contained the line, "Arab and Muslim families marched and chanted for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, overwhelming the messages of those with other causes."

In sentences like these, both described pro-Palestinian marchers overshouting other protesters. The Post, in particular, drew lines by identifying those who marched against U.S./Israeli policies solely as Arabs and Muslims, neglecting the large numbers of people of other faiths, ethnicities, and nationalities who came the ciy in busloads to support an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

In fact, a highlight of both independent and corporate news coverage was the Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who were in D.C. to express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. The image of a Hasidic man wearing the tradtional long beard and hat standing side by side with a family wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs became a stirring symbol of the nature of the demonstrations. The Post reports on this unity in their story, quoting Rabbi Yisroel Weiss who believes that Israel should be returned to the Palestinians. However, the photograph chosen to accompany the story on washingtonpost.com is of two Jewish men in conversation with two Arab men and bears the caption, "Osher Zelig Estreicher, left, debates policy with Kamal Gafar, as do Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Freimann and Galal Elraida. (Jahi Chikwendiu - The Washington Post)." It is an image of contention that offsets the message of support and cooperation evident at the marches and rally.

On the other hand, cooperation between demonstrators and the police is a central feature of the Post's story, which points out how well-behaved the protesters were, and how happy the police were with them. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey praised the decorum of the demonstrations, and is quoted in the article: "'the organizers did an outstanding job,' said Ramsey, baton in hand. 'If it stays this way, it will be the best one we've ever had. . . . This is really what protest ought to be.'" The story continues, "'that's the way we like it,'" Ramsey said. "'They ought to be low-key. People have a constitutional right to protest.'"

Those who were there might argue that, while the protests did not end in clashes with police or mass arrests, "low-key" would not most accurately describe the passionate cries of people shouting "long live the intifada" at a rally at the Ellipse.

The same article recounts a story of police and demonstrators working together when marchers wanted to change their route to avoid going through a tunnel below the street. "Tashim Sallah, 45, of Buffalo told
Ramsey and Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer that he was worried that people would suffocate in the tunnel. Gainer grabbed his hand and said, "'We're going down with you. There's no danger.' The group followed Ramsey and Gainer into the tunnel, and delighted in the
cool shade and underground echo for their chants."

The choice of words like "delight," and "cool shade," and the image of activists linking hands with police again seem calculated to undermine the strength of purpose and the urgency felt by pro-Palestinian and other demonstrators, most of whom saw their actions as part of a struggle for
fundamental human rights, and some of whom actually had loved ones in danger in Palestine.

Interestingly, along with talking about how peaceful and compliant demonstrators were, the Sun and the Post simultaneously portrayed protesters as anti-Semitic. The Washington Post reported that organizers had to ask many demonstrators not to wave swastikas (not mentioning that, accurate or not, the swastikas were used to make reference to Sharon's policies, not because the carriers sympathized with Nazism), though not all complied. The Sun printed: "By afternoon, the more militant forces of the pro-Palestinian movement dominated, with swastikas and anti-Sharon
and anti-Bush slogans and banners." (Author's note: Among the 75,000 participants, I saw two swastikas on Saturday, both used to replace the Star of David on Israeli flags.)

The Sun also included this quote: "'There's a fallacy that Jews have horns and tails - well, Ariel Sharon does. He's Satan,'" said Ruth Lopez, 40, a New York City schoolteacher who held a sign picturing the Israeli leader as a horned beast."

By portraying demonstrators as both "good"--peaceful, cooperative, friendly with police--and "bad"--anti-Semitic, alienating of the mainstream--the media manage to uphold an image of dangerous radicals who are out of touch with mainstream America while simultaneously assuring readers that these radicals are firmly under control. Those who delight in walking calmly through cool tunnels will never manage any sort of real upheaval.

Perhaps indicative of how seriously they viewed the weekend's events, washingtonpost.com used its Fashion section to lament the loss of fashion as an expression of political views, and to make speculations about what the protesters would be wearing, writing "undoubtedly each of the groups will have its protest costume: the T-shirts, the flags draped like cloaks, perhaps some headgear with a political slogan scrawled across the crown."