The line of people was four deep, moving west from First Ave. behind blue police barricades. Police officers watched carefully as they passed Kinko's and Frian's Coffee Shop and made a right at the Hsin Yu Fine Chinese Cuisine restaurant onto Second Ave. All were headed to a packed rally on 47th St. Most were rallying behind Israel in its military invasion of Palestinian territories.

"America doesn't negotiate with terrorists," one sign proclaimed. "Why should Israel?"

"Stop the subhuman culture of Palestinian terrorists," said another, while a third, flapping in the brilliant sunshine, said: "Sharon, Destroy the enemy!"

All of 47th St. was filled with people facing a speakers' stand on the First Ave. end. The crowd was young and middle class, with a small number of older people, including Jewish-American war veterans, and many school children. Hundreds of police officers, some in plainclothes, watched from the sidelines, from within the crowd, from rooftops. There was heated anger in the cool air.

"The President says, 'You're either with us or against us,'" one speaker shouted, his words caroming off empty office buildings. "You're with America or you're with the terrorists. Well, the Arabs are not with America! Only Israel is with us! It's Israel and America against the terrorists!"

"Who's speaking?" a visitor asked, far from the speaker's stand.

"I don't have a clue," a young man said, then laughed, and added, "But he's right!"

Speakers followed speakers. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said: "No nation — no nation — has been asked to do what the world seems to be asking Israel to do. No nation is asked not to defend themselves, and we should not ask Israel to do what we ask no other nation. Israel's fight is America's fight, and America's fight is the world's fight."

Then Schumer added a darker note, one echoed by other speakers: the suggestion that Middle Eastern-style terrorism could be on its way here. That is, low-level car bombs, package bombs and suicide bombers unlike the spectacular bombers of Sept. 11.

"Tomorrow, it could be in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles," Schumer said. "We must fight terrorism!"

In his suggestion that the West Bank might be the first line of New York defense, Schumer was relatively restrained. Others were more emotional. Many attacked the European nations that have condemned Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's campaign, suggesting that their motives are a return to ancient European anti-Semitism.

Europe Criticized

Last week's attacks on synagogues in France (which has 5 million Muslims) were compared with the runup to the Holocaust. These sounds of alarm were invariably punctuated with shouts of "Never again!" One speaker ended a speech with: "Shame on the European nations! Shame on the European nations! Shame on the European nations!"

There were several undercurrents to the dominant themes of supporting Sharon's campaign. Whenever The New York Times was mentioned, the crowd booed. One sign bobbed above the heads of the crowd, stating that CNN, the BBC, Ted Koppel and Peter Jennings equaled "Arafat's Propaganda Reporting."

Several speakers demanded that the New York office of the Palestine Liberation Organization be closed. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was repeatedly described as the leading terrorist in the conflict, and one speaker shouted: "We cannot negotiate with the Nazis or Arafat!" Someone shouted from the crowd that Jonathan Pollard, who spied against the U.S. for Israel, should be freed. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden adorned at least a dozen posters in the iconography of evil.

"Finish the job!" one speaker shouted, over and over again. "Finish the job!"

And those words, and that anger, were clearly directed at President Bush. They support Bush for the way he has run the war on terrorism. They were furious with him for his opposition to the Sharon invasion of Palestinian territories to hunt down and eradicate terrorists. The ambivalence was almost tangible yesterday at noon.

"He's getting a lot of bad advice," one man said. "He's not thinking this through."

Last week, Bush told Sharon to stop his offensive "without delay." Sharon's people said, well, that could mean weeks from now. Then on Saturday, Bush said "immediately" to clarify what was meant by "without delay." (Yesterday, Bush adviser Condoleezza Rice used the word "now" to explain the timing.) But Sharon, in essence, replied to Bush with two words. The second word was "you."

Friends Are Few

The crowd in 47th St. yesterday was largely on the side of Sharon's defiance. But even this had elements of ambiguity. Everybody there understood that Israel has only one friend among all the nations of the world: the United States of America. There are no others.

American taxpayers support Israel with billions of dollars in aid. Arab friends of the U.S. and Arab enemies point out that American weapons are being used to kill Palestinians, not all of whom are terrorists. The current fighting — and mass protests in Arab nations — makes it less likely than ever that Bush can find Arab allies for his planned war with Iraq.

"I don't like this part of it," an older man said to me (like several others, unwilling to use his name). "Israel needs us more than we need Israel, no matter what these guys are saying here today."

That was another way of saying that public oratory and the language of posters are sometimes not adequate for discussion of subjects as wretchedly complicated as the Middle East. They are, at best, blunt instruments. Slogans are not ideas. They can lead to discussion, as argument can sometimes lead to true debate and finally to consensus. But they are never the last word.

But the despair behind the simplifications was absolutely understandable. All over 47th St. yesterday, there were people of immense decency who have been reduced to believing that Sharon's way is the only way to an eventual peace. The slaughters in restaurants, markets and at the Passover Seder have eroded hope in the workings of human reason. The implication is clear: The only way to deal with such death-sick people is by dealing out more death. Sadly, nobody can ever know where that path leads.

Out on the fringes of the crowd yesterday, a young couple with a small child left early. The adults were smiling in the lovely weather. A car with a boom box passed on Second Ave., and the couple and the child crossed Second Ave. when the light changed. They walked until they found a Sbarro's restaurant and went inside to order pizza. In Israel, suicide bombers have slaughtered dozens of people in two separate Sbarro's. Here, there was nothing to fear. For now.