If you’ve been following the pro-Palestinian protests of late, you could be forgiven for thinking all rallies everywhere include chants encouraging violence or promoting terrorism; that calls for “intifada revolution” or a “free Palestine from the river to the sea” invariably go hand in hand with people marching for some movement or cause. You might think that by associating with any movements or causes, people necessarily subordinate their human decency to achieve a goal. Maybe you’d think it’s impossible to stage a large-scale demonstration without one or two people getting assaulted or even killed along the way.

While the last five weeks have given you every reason in the world to think that, it turns out it is possible to hold a truly (not mostly) peaceful demonstration. Tuesday’s March for Israel — where, according to organizers, 290,000 people gathered on the National Mall without incident — proves as much.

There were no calls to eliminate Palestinians from the map; speakers expressed concern for the plight of innocents, and a popular sign at the event was some variation of “Free Gaza from Hamas.” There was no advocating violence against Muslims — no pro-Israel version of “globalize the intifada,” no Hebrew chants translating to “Israel will be Jewish” like the Arabic slogans meaning “Palestine will be Arab” — and no defacement of public property. There were no Palestinian flags burned and no American flags torn down and desecrated. In fact, with the sea of Israeli flags on the Mall yesterday were countless people waving the stars and stripes, singing the American national anthem along with the Israeli one, and — during a speech by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — chanting “U-S-A!” No one in the crowd claimed massacres of civilians as legitimate resistance; as far as I could tell, there was no “by any means necessary” rhetoric whatsoever.

Some have criticized the audience’s cheers and subsequent chanting in response to Speaker Mike Johnson saying “the calls for a cease-fire are outrageous.” What they take issue with is Jews agreeing that Israel should be allowed to go after the Hamas terrorists who massacred its citizens on October 7. As the signs reading “Free Gaza from Hamas” and “Hamas is ISIS” demonstrate, the opposition to a cease-fire is about bringing those responsible for the atrocities of just over a month ago to justice.

The Jews and non-Jews alike who chanted “no cease-fire” obviously know this. That explains one of the biggest differences between the pro-Israel rally and the myriad pro-Palestinian protests: No person I saw at the march, and no person in any photos I’ve seen since, wore a mask. None felt the need to conceal his or her identity, because the protesters — apparently in contrast to those on the other side of the issue — understood that they were doing nothing wrong. There is not a moral equivalence between the two sides here, and the conduct of the protesters is just another piece of evidence to that point.