[We asked cousins Mimi Asnes and Ben Keller to cover yesterday's peace conference at Annapolis, Mimi from the outside and Ben from within. Read all their coverage here.]

Annapolis is a pretty city, especially its main square overlooking the port. So it was a bit of a shock to happen upon a street fight in this orderly military town—especially a street fight between two ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.

“You are a terrorist! You are not Jewish!” one shouted at the other.

“You are a murderer! Go to Iran!” screamed the other as they led groups jostling for space on the cobblestoned street.

“Why do they hate each other?" I asked. "Aren’t they on the same side?”

My companion just shook his head. He had been variously called a terrorist, a faggot, a murderer and a worm, despite the fact that he hails from the same neighborhood as many of these protestors.

Meet Kobi Skolnik. He was my guide through the black-coated, black-capped groups of men amassed at Gate One of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Without Kobi, I would not be able to explain to you the fine difference between a Kahanist and a Lubovitcher and a Sadmer Chasid and someone belonging to Neturei Karta. Not to mention those Kobi calls “regular Israelis” who were demonstrating against any potential concessions to be made to the Palestinians.

Neturei Karta (or the Sadmer Chasidim) are a religious group who renounce the validity of the State of Israel—they are most infamous for attending Iranian summits convened by ever-beloved President Ahmadinejad which have called into question the historiography of the Holocaust.

Lubovitchers, according to Skolnik, believe that their Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shnorson that died more than a decade ago is the Messiah and they believe in a “complete” Land of Israel from the Jordan River to the sea. They oppose the idea of a Palestinian state on religious grounds and don’t believe that “land for peace” is a legitimate option since the Land of Israel must be whole as it is holy.

Kahanists believe that the Palestinians should be expelled to other Arab countries; those protesting were saying, “They have many states, and we have only one.” Expulsion should happen by force if necessary. They are a terrorist organization in Israel. When Kobi saw one kid with a Kahane T-shirt holding a sign that said “Not one more Terrorist Arab country,” he tried to get into a philosophical debate with him about the fact that he was promoting and decrying terrorism at the same time. It didn’t go over well.

And where were the Palestinians? Or even the pro-Palestinian community? Notably missing. One very left-wing friend in the area told me that most of his contingent didn’t want to even legitimize the conference by protesting. But the right and even center pro-Israel contingent was also not represented. Said a longtime progressive Jewish activist: “They’ll wait to see what happens, and then if it’s positive, they’ll swoop in and take credit.”

We did run into a group of students from Johns Hopkins, Baltimore and Towson Universities, some of whom were of Pakistani origin. Mohsen Rahman explained to us that they were there to bring a pro-Palestinian perspective and were thoroughly inspected and followed by security, their names taken and their posters documented. These five young students were roundly harassed by the anti-Annapolis demonstrators who called them “terrorists,” and “murderers.”

While milling about the Gate One crowd I ran into Lane Berg, a longtime activist who said she had witnessed “every violent demonstration” in the US, as well as having traveled to Israel and South Africa at key historical moments of protest. She said that she’d never seen so many people with violently diverging opinions demonstrating mostly peaceably in the same small space and was amazed—“it brings me hope,” she said, and then asked me why I thought this was. I hated to tell her what I perceive as the truth; that the Big Boys stayed home today.

Here are some of the slogans we heard:

• “Zionists no. Judaism yes.”
• “Am Yisrael Chai.”
• “Im ashkakheikh yerushalayim eshkakh yemini.”
• “Free Palestine”
• “Arabs, Palestinians—Murderers!”
• “No terrorist state!” (from anti-Anapolis pro-Israel evangelicals).
• “—in Israel!” (added subversively by the Towson students).