"In a press release following the action, Israeli-American activist Eitan Isaacson -- who chanted "silencing dissent delegitimizes Israel" before being forcibly removed from the conference hall -- stated: "We're here to call out the elephant in the middle of the room. Israel continues to expropriate Palestinian land for Jewish-only communities, passes increasingly racist laws in the Knesset, the foreign minister wants to strip Palestinian citizens of their citizenship -- these are the reasons Israel is becoming a pariah in the world ..." ("Young Jews challenge American Jewish leadership ...").
"The crowd was acting more and more like a mob mentality," Abileah said. "They had been chanting 'Bibi Bibi' [Netanyahu's nickname] and 'Am Yisrael chai' [the Jewish nation lives], and they were booing. I stood up after Netanyahu said something about the peace process and I started chanting. A man came from behind me and put his arm around me in a choke-hold. I was pushed backwards. Another man took a seat cover, which was a cloth-like advertisement for El-Al airlines, and he tried to stuff it in my mouth to gag me."
Abileah told The Electronic Intifada that two female police officers escorted her out and told her they were stunned by this kind of violent behavior from the audience. "This is the kind of base-level violence that -- on bigger levels -- happens every day in the West Bank and Gaza Strip," Abileah said. "This is the shocking reality that we want to focus on."
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