We were wending our way around downtown D.C. looking for a good parking spot. We had come down from Baltimore so we could show my pal Robert Hernandez’s 8-year-old niece Aniya, who lives in Havre de Grace, out in the Maryland country, the museums and sites. Rob’s girlfriend, Stephanie, was driving with Aniya sitting next to her.

Aniya and I have one thing in common: We’re both Hispanic and Jewish. It’s a rare blend, but more common than many people think. Fidel Castro is probably a Latin Jew.

About 10 blocks north of the Mall, I started seeing signs of a protest: small Lebanese flags and handwritten fliers too small to read from a distance. I am always glad to see demonstrations. We kept driving closer downtown.

I advised Stephanie to try the east-west streets, as they tend to have more free spots. We were cruising the borders of a park just north of the White House when we came upon the pro-Lebanon demonstration.

There, as many as 300 people were beginning the day’s activities, wearing the red, white and green national colors and setting up activities under the flag of Lebanon.

But throughout the crowd people carried signs with Israeli flags covered in barbed wire or dripping with brightly markered blood. There were posters drawn with skulls and gas masks and printed with slogans such as “Israel: Country of Murderers,” “Stop Jewish Genocide” and “Die Israel.” If you needed one, there was a bin of more such signs on the sidewalk when you walked in.

I have always been outspoken in my support of the Muslim peoples of the Middle East. Israel seemed to have had itself covered: A full third of all U.S. foreign aid goes there, the economy is good. For a nation only half a century old, it is coming along well.

But over the past month of conflict in south Lebanon, I have heard from so many people I know, read in so many news sources and heard from organizations I respect how terrible Israel is. It is almost a reflexive thing. Not many people feel particularly bad about trash talking the world’s only Jewish state.

And for a long time, I’ve endured people making anti-Semitic jokes and remarks to my face. And when I protest, I am told that things aren’t so bad anymore and it’s much worse for others.

But it is deadly, and the people of my own bloodline in Israel are dying for it daily, as we have for thousands of years.

This summer, I have seen that when the chips are down and war is on (or when Mel Gibson is blowing up again), very few people and organizations will defend us but us. And though I believe devoutly and without hesitation in the rights of all people, when someone is attacking my people, I will stand firmly with my people.

Our car was slowly turning the next corner and Stephanie was trying to explain to the 8-year-old Aniya what the protest was about. And just as we were turning away from it, we saw a man on the corner wearing a red, white and green sort of doo-rag and red, white and green sweat pants, T-shirt and sunglasses standing tall with his arms thrust to his hips. The tension was relieved and all of us in the car laughed when Robert joked: “Look, everyone, it’s Captain Lebanon!”