On Wednesday morning, the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) was partially taken over by a mob of around 200 pro-Hamas protestors who blocked security gates, interfering with the free travel of people who have nothing to do with Israel, Gaza, or Hamas. The protestors were calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. It's not clear precisely who in the San Francisco International Airport they think may have been in a position to implement such a cease-fire.

Just after 8:30 a.m., protesters barricaded the A and G checkpoints at SFO’s International Terminal to demand a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war raging in Gaza.

Linking arms, the protesters held signs that read “Stop Arming Israel” while others beat drums. Several travelers stepped over a group of protesters sitting and blocking an escalator. Another group of demonstrators outside of the terminal blocked the entrance, halting traffic on the drop-off loop.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was arrested. A spokesperson for SFO did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.

As many as 200 pro-Palestine protesters were blocking security gates at San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday morning, demanding a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war raging in Gaza.https://t.co/ievsnNhiH2 pic.twitter.com/EDNTIP9BeR

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) March 13, 2024

It seems the International Terminal was not blocked, which makes the seeming lack of organization or even sense in this protest even more baffling. It would seem logical if one's intent is to protest an event taking place in another country, to pay attention to the International Terminal, which is in another part of the airport; interfering with domestic travel is a waste of time.

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The protesters, while calling for a cease-fire, appear to have mentioned only Israel; one wonders if they think Hamas should also stop their aggressive activities. It's also unclear whether these protestors know that the end to aggression they call for already was in place before October 7th, 2023, when Hamas launched a brutal, atrocity-laden attack out of Gaza, targeting Israeli citizens.

In recent years, one of the more common political movement descriptions  has been “astroturfing.” Why astroturf? It’s fake grass, of course – and the astroturfers are guilty of setting up fake grass-roots movements, using very few, very loud people to make their case. That would appear to be the case here; a few loud, ill-informed protestors, making an emotional appeal, not one based on a reasoned assessment of the situation on the ground in Israel and Gaza; their casus belli is, obviously, "Israel's bad," despite the facts: that Israel was the subject of a brutal attack, that this attack included atrocities on an absolutely shocking scale, including the mass murder of civilians with some gang rapes thrown in. Israel's response has, by comparison, been very measured — and it's important to note that the protesters Wednesday at SFO were not calling for Hamas to cease fire, only Israel.

Interfering with the travel of people who have no connection to Israel, Gaza, or Hamas almost certainly turns people against the cause of the protestors. These kinds of protests are the most childish kind of virtue-signalling. This is the societal equivalent of a toddler stamping his foot and threatening to hold his breath until he gets a cookie.