One smaller event that unfolded almost immediately was embedded in the larger one. It was a changing of the guard: one vigil participant handed off their sign to another as the one arrived and the other departed. But by this time several participants were beginning to filter away without being replaced. One estimate floated by a participant put the peak number of participants at around 200.

Some of the demonstrators on Thursday had responded to the scheduled vigil in order to make a more partisan point than the organizers were making. But at least one of them had no prior knowledge of the vigil, and had been demonstrating in her usual spot on weekday evenings at Liberty and Fifth – in front of the Federal Building. Seeing the activity just west of her, and already equipped with a sign, “US-RAEL, biggest rogue nation,” she decided to join the larger group.

A group of young men were collecting signatures for a petition (calling for a ceasefire) to be sent to elected representatives in Michigan. Chatting with them, they recognized the name, Ann Arbor Chronicle, and let me know they were in agreement with comment number [5] about a previous article published here on an earlier demonstration. The comment was critical of the inclusion of an interaction between a demonstrator and a passerby, who questioned the motivation of the demonstrators.

On Thursday, I shared with them the same sentiment with which I ended that comment thread: we try to describe what unfolds in front of us. But in some ways that skirts the issue. Because we don’t describe everything that we see. It would be impossible to write, or to read, something that detailed. Every inclusion or exclusion is an editorial decision. A good photograph offers that level of detail, but the photographer has to point the camera somewhere. And that entails a decision about what direction to point it. Once you have the photograph, you have to decide if and how to crop it. That’s another editorial decision.

Below are some photographs from Thursday evening’s demonstration. The captions consist of commentary intended to provide some insight into what I thought was interesting enough about the image to offer them to Chronicle readers.

First shot of the evening. Many of the demonstrators carried the "Ceasefire Now" sheets, which seemed to be the preferred signage for those who'd responded to the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice request that participants should, "Please bring signs that support a peaceful end to the conflict in Gaza."

I like this one for the way a single candle and a single sign drew the whole huddle of people together.

The irony of the news hotline number: If I'm reading this number, I don't need to call you ... you're already here.

Given the sides represented among the demonstrators, the Channel 7 slogan on the truck prompts the question: "Really?? You're on MY side?? Which side is that, exactly?" (The photograph's angle makes it somewhat unclear what the demonstrator is holding. It's a rectangular sign – edge view.)

What was interesting to me about these signs was the split into two fields of black and white with reversed field lettering, which mirrors the stark contrast in viewpoints on the conflict. Also the pairing of "received" with "rocket" struck me as somewhat odd, making me wonder if the understatement was intended.

The woman next to the sign-holder was energetically wiping her feet on an Israeli flag, which I took to be the sign-holder's point of view as well. I took the sign to be an allusion to an Iraqi journalist's recent attempt to throw his shoe at President Bush – that is, a call to stand up and do something, whatever it might be. But the ambiguity is intriguing.

I liked this one for the contrast between everything that said "warm" (the glove, the candle, the fur-edged hood) against the shivering exhale.

I wondered if this guy was smiling about anything in particular, or if wearing a smile was part of his way of keeping warm.

This photo was cropped to include the signage on the restaurant, because I think it brings out how routine "background" messages would fill our visual field, if demonstrators on street corners did not occasionally offer a different message.

As someone who in many ways "goes green," the sign, in some sense, spoke to me.

This photo demonstrates that photos by themselves don't tell an accurate story. It might appear to show a confrontation between the sign holder and the person wearing the dark hooded coat. In fact, it was chat between friends.

This one, I thought, captured nicely the span in ages of participants.

These photographs give some idea of what happened on a street corner on a cold evening in a sleepy little midwestern U.S. college town. But they don’t give much real insight into events happening half a world away. Most of us, I suspect, don’t make conscious choices about how we want to be informed about far-away places. I sure don’t. We randomly sample from the ubiquitous stream of TV, radio, newspapers, and wire reports that permeate our modern life.

But there’s bound to be some Chronicle readers who aren’t as lazy as that, and who consciously use a specific news source to get information about the Middle East. If so, kindly provide a link (if possible) and a brief description why as a comment below. Feel free to leave other comments as well, bearing in mind our commenting policy.

[Editor's note: HD is Homeless Dave, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. ]

Demonstrators on the southeast corner of Liberty and Fifth in downtown Ann Arbor.

While out and about early Friday afternoon, The Chronicle noticed a Channel 7 News truck parked across from the Federal Building at Fifth and Liberty in downtown Ann Arbor. A little over an hour later, the news truck had disappeared. But according to one of the people demonstrating on the corner, before departing the camera crew had shot footage of the local protest prompted by recent and ongoing violence in Gaza.

By The Chronicle’s estimate, about 100 people, organized in part by students from Washtenaw Community College and the University of Michigan, had gathered at 3 p.m. to protest. Their signs and their chants placed the blame unambiguously on Israel and the U.S. for supplying financial support. One sign read simply, “Stop Funding Israel.” A group chant began, “1, 2, 3, 4 stop the killing, stop the war,” and concluded with “5, 6, 7, 8 Israel is a terrorist state.”

A demonstrator on the opposite street corner, who wished to be identified simply as “Chuck,” told The Chronicle that he saw a problem in the way that Israel was typically portrayed in the media, “as a victim,” and the way that Palestinians were portrayed typically in the media as “terrorist psychos.” For him, a key statistic to look at was the rate of casualties among Palestinians versus Israelis – which he said were sustained at a ratio of 10:1 or greater – and asked, “Is that self-defense?”

Demonstrators on the southwest corner of Fifth and Liberty.

A few feet away one of Chuck’s colleagues was concluding a verbal altercation with an observer (who did not wish to be further identified) with words to the effect, “It’s good to know there are people like you out there,” walking away despite the observer’s gambit for more talk. But Chuck was game.

The observer’s question: “Do you acknowledge violence everywhere, or only by Israel?” The observer said that he’d not seen similar demonstrations and vigils on behalf of people in China or Darfur, and said that it seemed to him that the protest was not motivated by a desire for peace so much as by anti-Israeli sentiment. Chuck responded by inviting the observer to organize demonstrations on behalf of whoever he liked, saying that it made sense for us (as U.S. citizens) to take a strong interest in Palestine because of the direct connection to U.S. foreign policy on aid to Israel. Chuck’s question for the observer: “Do you acknowledge the right of Palestinians to self-defense?” A yes-no response did not seem forthcoming, but the observer noted what he felt was a “double-standard” applied to Israel on the question of violence. The wind howling out of the north and freezing temperatures probably played a role in cutting the conversation shorter than it might have been.

Asked by The Chronicle what specific call to action locally the demonstration was meant to convey to people walking and driving past, Chuck allowed that it could be distilled into asking people to look deeper than the headlines.

When The Chronicle looked up a few minutes later, the demonstrators had headed east on Liberty for an apparent circuit downtown.

Demonstration chants were led by megaphone.

Some drivers headed through the intersection responded to the sign by honking and waving.

The green sign at left reads: "Gaza, do not cry, Palestine will never die."