Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

This article originally appeared on Haaretz. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.

BERKELEY (Haaretz) — Simcha Rothman, a member of Knesset and a key architect of the Israeli judicial coup, flew all the way to Northern California to drum up support for his contentious plan only to be driven off the stage within minutes by an unusual mix of Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters.

Chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Rothman had been invited to present the plan at an event hosted Tuesday by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, at Berkeley Law School.

The crowd in the auditorium was comprised mainly Israeli-Americans who have been active in the past two years in the West Coast protests against Israel’s right-wing government. They appeared to have bought up most of the tickets to the event.

Carrying posters with the photos of the hostages being held in Gaza, the Israeli protesters surrounded Rothman when he entered the room, shouting: “What are you doing here in the middle of the war?” and “What have you done for the hostages?”

The talk was titled “Restoring Democracy: The Debate Over Judicial Reform in Israel.” Rothman is a member of the far-right Religious Zionism party.

The Israeli protesters belong to UnXeptable, a group established a few years ago in the Bay Area that now has chapters in cities around the world. This was the first protest that UnXeptable has organized against an Israeli politician on the West Coast since Oct. 7.

A representative of the law school opened the event by reciting a “civility statement” and emphasizing the importance of “respectful speech.”

Meanwhile, outside the auditorium, pro-Palestinian students, wearing kaffiyehs, had gathered, carrying signs bearing the names of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war. They directed their chants, not at Rothman, but rather, at the Israelis who had come to protest him.

“The counter-protesters, liberal Zionists, support the genocide in Gaza,” they chanted over and over.

Rothman was joined on the stage for a conversation with Joshua Kleinfeld, a professor of law at George Mason University and a member of the Federalist Society. It was not clear why the event was being held at Berkeley.

A few minutes into Rothman’s response to Kleinfeld’s first question, the Israelis in the audience started shouting: “Go home!” and “Shame!”

They were unaware that several anti-Israel protesters were embedded in the crowd. One of them grabbed a microphone on the floor and began shouting: “Free, Free Palestine” and “Israel is a terrorist state.”

When a security guard tried to throw the anti-Israel protesters out, one of them shouted: “Why are you only throwing out the anti-Zionists? Why not the Zionists?”

“Don’t you understand that we hate him too?” an elderly Israeli woman who was part of the UnXeptable group said, pleading with the anti-Israeli protesters to leave the room.

‘Go Home!’ — Israeli-Americans come to protest Simcha Rothman – the architect of Israel’s judicial coup — on his visit to Berkeley law school , where he is guest of Federalist Society pic.twitter.com/JO63miyMAB

— Judy Maltz (@MaltzJudy) September 24, 2024

“What you are doing is not helping the Palestinians. It is only harming them,” said another member of the UnXeptable group, as he grabbed the mic.

As a shouting match erupted between the two groups of protesters in the auditorium, Rothman was escorted off the stage by police — not before he gleefully turned to members of the UnXeptable group and said: “Now we all know who your partners are.”

In the ensuing commotion, the anti-Israeli protesters ran to the main door of the auditorium, opening it so that the large group of pro-Palestinians protesters in the hallway could burst in.

A fire alarm subsequently went off, and police shooed the entire crowd out.

An email sent by the Berkeley Law School a few minutes later notified ticket holders that “the speakers have decided to leave the building” and the event would resume on Zoom an hour and 45 minutes after the scheduled time.

Berkeley Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky strongly condemned the actions of the protesters in an email to law school students, faculty and staff sent early Wednesday.

“What occurred today in the Law School is unacceptable in an academic community,” Chemerinsky wrote of Tuesday’s event. “We must be a place where all ideas and views can be expressed. There is no right to disrupt a speaker.”

Chemerinsky said that if any students participated in the disruption, they would face “disciplinary proceedings.”