After a brief hiatus, a green-and-white Hamas flag was once again flying outside a San Carlos home on Thursday, as a small group of Israel supporters demonstrated loudly and confronted the man displaying it.
The six pro-Israel demonstrators who gathered on the public sidewalk and street outside his home said they wanted to raise awareness about what the flag represents.
J. witnessed a heated verbal confrontation that ensued.
The demonstrators, some of them wearing and waving American and Israeli flags, blared patriotic American and Israeli music from loudspeakers and waved handmade anti-Hamas signs to draw the attention of people driving by the home.
“This is a terrorist flag in a U.S. city! This is allegiance to a terrorist group!” one sign read.
After about 45 minutes, a San Mateo County Sheriff Office vehicle drove up. A deputy rolled down the window, appearing to ask a demonstrator what was happening. After a brief conversation, the officer drove away, and the demonstration continued for several more minutes before it began to clear out. The sheriff’s office did not respond to J.’s request for comment on Thursday. (Earlier in the week, a sheriff’s spokesperson told J. that the office was “aware” of the flag and had “shared information with federal partners by way of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center,” an information clearinghouse for public safety concerns.)
Just before the group left on Thursday, a man exited the home and walked to the public sidewalk, upset that several pieces of paper and a cardboard box may have been left there by the demonstrators.
Isa M., a Jewish San Carlos resident who spearheaded the demonstration and requested that only her last initial be used because of safety concerns, shouted to the man from a few yards away, calling him a “racist” and a “terrorist.” A few other pro-Israel demonstrators who had started to drive away shouted from their cars in the middle of the street.
“You are terrorizing someone’s house!” the man shouted back. “You are the terrorists!”
The shouting match lasted for several minutes.
“Why don’t you come out of your car and talk?” yelled the man, who later told J. that his name is Rashid. He did not give his last name.
Another demonstrator called from her car, telling him that by displaying the Hamas flag, he was showing support for a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
Rashid said the U.S. and Israel are both terrorist countries and added that he doesn’t hate Jews.
Referencing the Arabic written in white letters on the green flag, Rashid shouted to the demonstrators, “It says no one is God except Allah. Mohammad is the messenger of Allah. That is not a terrorist flag. That is a Muslim flag for the whole world. So get your facts straight.”
After the confrontation, Rashid agreed to an interview with J. and gave permission to have his photograph taken.
He said the white script on the flag is the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, and noted that he has been fasting in observance of Ramadan.
The flag “has nothing to do with Hamas,” said Rashid, despite its well-established use as a banner representing the Islamist group that controls Gaza.
Rashid described himself as a white Muslim man and said he was born in Portland, Oregon.
“They’re ignorant,” he said of the demonstrators.
The Hamas flag and two other flags came down last week after flying for at least four days. It is unclear why they were removed, though there was a storm the day they came down. The other two were a Palestinian flag overlaid with a raised fist and “Palestinians Lives Matter,” and a white flag in support of a Muslim group in the Balkans.
On Thursday, two of the flags were back up but the white one, which Rashid said was a Bosnian Sandzak flag, was replaced with a kaffiyeh. The white flag did not fly properly, Rashid noted.
When asked about the headscarf and tunic he wears, Rashid explained that they’re clothing from Morocco, the country of his stepfather.
When asked whether he plans to keep his flags up, he pointed to a Palestinian flag waving across the street, four houses away.
“I’m not the only one,” he said.
“My wife told me to take it down too,” he said, because of the negative attention it has attracted. But he said he doesn’t plan to do so any time soon.
John Dugan, a San Carlos City Council member, told a city resident in an email exchange that the display of a terrorism symbol concerned him but was likely legal.
“It is a very high bar indeed for local government to remove constitutionally protected private speech taking place on private property,” Dugan wrote in the email, which the resident shared with J.
The community security adviser for the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund said that when individuals come across a symbol of hate or terrorism, they should file a report through the Federation’s incident report form or the Anti-Defamation League’s similar form.
“The Federation’s community security team works strategically to assist our community with navigating requests and calls for law enforcement response and intervention,” Molly Jozer wrote in an email to J.