Remember how that female protester being stomped became a giant issue in the Rand Paul campaign for Senate in Kentucky?

Why isn’t the chokehold applied to Rae Abileah, a young woman protesting Netanyahu at the Federations General Assembly in New Orleans, a bigger story? Here is JTA’s Jacob Berkman, the Fundermentalist:

When the final protester stood up and opened a banner reading, “Young Jews say the loyalty oath de-legitimizes Israel,” Jeff Shapira from San Antonio grabbed her from behind and put her in a choke hold, dragging her backward towards the floor. When I asked Shapira later if he had ever before put a woman in a choke hold, he replied: “Not really. No. I really did not know what was going to happen, I wanted to keep her in check. I was trying to help.” … Fundermentalist’s take: Shapira said he was just trying to help, but in the end the aggressive responses from audience members to the protesters isn’t helping Jewish federations any with some segments of the very demographic that they are trying desperately to reach. While clearly some of the younger attendees at the GA helped in shouting down the JVP protesters, a number of young leaders in the Jewish world told me that the scene made them very uncomfortable, that while they do not agree with JVP’s tactics, they too are critical of the policies that were being protested. And the hostility they witnessed from some audience members gave them pause to wonder if the federation system, ideologically, is a good fit.

My response to Fundermentalist: You are equivocating about an outrage. When America had slavery, the great editor William Lloyd Garrison wrote, “I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.” (David Bromwich quotes it here.)

JVP is in the Wm Lloyd Garrison role. They are leading. They will be heard.