Washington ? Tens of thousands converged Saturday on downtown Washington, D.C., to demonstrate for a variety of causes, but it was the numbers and passion of busloads of Arab-Americans and their supporters that dominated the streets.

Eager to make their presence felt and their voices heard in the nation’s capital as never before, Arab and Muslim families marched and chanted for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, overwhelming the messages of those with causes in a peaceful day of downtown rallies and marches.

Young men wore the Palestinian flag around their necks like a cape. Arabic was heard nearly as often as English, and cardboard signs held by women and children denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush. Protesters rallying against corporate wrongs and the global economy found themselves tweaking Vietnam War-era chants to the Palestinian cause, shouting, “One, two, three, four: We don’t want no Mideast war!”

“The message here is we must support the Palestinian people against a military occupation and an apartheid state,” said Randa Jamal, a graduate student at New York’s Columbia University who joined thousands at a pro-Palestinian rally near the White House. She said her cousins were killed in Ramallah, and her 16-year-old sister had been unable to attend school because of the Israeli occupation. “What they are going through,” she said, “is crimes against humanity.”

Converging causes

Palestinian rights was the theme of two of four permitted marches that merged on Pennsylvania Avenue in a loud and colorful procession to the Capitol. The host of other issues anti-corporate globalization, antiwar and anti-U.S. policies in several areas were boiled down to an essence visible on banners, placards and T-shirts. Banners read: “Drop debt, not bombs” and “Peace treaty in Korea now.” Bumper stickers on T-shirts declared: “No blank check for endless war” and “We are all Palestinian.”

It was possible to stand on the Washington Monument grounds and hear simultaneous speeches from three rallies nearby antiwar demonstrators, counter-demonstrators and pro-Palestinian activists in a mind-boggling surround-sound mix. Protesters came from the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis, Middlebury College in Vermont and the District of Columbia chapter of the International Socialist Organization. There were teenage anti-capitalists with black bandanas over their faces marching alongside Muslim mothers wrapped in traditional headdress and pushing baby strollers.

‘We want to do something’

Other demonstrations are planned today and Monday near the Washington Monument grounds and outside of the Washington Hilton, the site of a pro-Israel lobbying group’s annual conference.

Police officials said the crowds were larger than they had anticipated and put the number at about 75,000. Metro transit officials said ridership increased significantly Saturday, but estimates would not be available until Sunday. Organizers of the Palestinian-rights rally at the Ellipse said the gathering was the largest demonstration for Palestine in U.S. history.

“We are here because we want to do something, to send a message,” said Amal David, a Palestinian American who weathered a 12-hour trip in a 21-bus caravan from the Detroit area to join the rally organized by International Answer, an antiwar, anti-racism coalition that shifted the theme of its protest as the violence in the Middle East escalated. In tears, David spoke of the destruction that U.S.-financed Israeli weapons and tanks have done to Palestinians, saying: “My beloved country is financing such death and destruction. I am so ashamed.”

Many pro-Palestinian marchers said they learned of the march through their mosques. “All over the U.S., everybody got the word,” said Issam Khalil of the Bronx, who traveled in a fleet of 50 buses from New York.

Several downtown blocks away, several thousand other pro-Palestinian activists took to the streets for another march to free Palestine. The group was made up mostly of Arab Americans with relatives in the occupied territories and U.S. Jews opposed to the occupation.

“The Palestinians here in the crowd look at us mistrustfully at first,” said Rabbi Yisroel Weiss, 45, of New York. “But then they speak a few words with us, and they show us respect and friendship.” Weiss traveled to Washington with several dozen Orthodox rabbis to join the march, which left the Washington Hilton, joined anti-globalization demonstrators outside the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and continued on the Capitol. He said his group favored dismantling Israel and returning it to the Palestinians.

Buses carried Jewish supporters from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, among other places.

Organizers at the march privately urged participants to strike swastikas from their posters, but few complied. It was a running debate among many participants, though several swastikas appeared on signs in reference to Sharon by the end of the day.

By about 4 p.m., no major clashes had broken out between police and protesters. The events were a stark contrast to Washington demonstrations in April 2000, when protests against the World Bank and IMF led to a virtual shutdown of the downtown area and sparked clashes between police and demonstrators that ended in mass arrests.