A protester from San Francisco and the pro-Israeli activist she accused of assault as she attempted to shout down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress have reached a settlement on her lawsuit.
Attorneys for Rae Abileah, who was raised in Half Moon Bay, and her alleged assaulter, Stanley Shulster of Ashland, Ore., refused to comment on details of the settlement. Abileah is the co-director of Codepink and a co-organizer of Occupy AIPAC.
Shulster, 73, said, “I didn’t pay her a penny.” But a news release from Codepink — a women-initiated activist organization that, according to its website, works “to end U.S.-funded wars and occupations” — said that Abileah was to receive “compensatory damages” and that she would “donate a portion of the received funds to legal and medical aid for peaceful Palestinian protesters in the West Bank.”
Shulster was in Washington for an AIPAC conference when he went to hear Netanyahu speak before a joint session of Congress on May 24, 2011. Shortly into the address, Abileah stood and unfurled a banner that read “Occupying Land is Indefensible.” She also shouted slogans such as “No more occupation” and “Stop Israeli war crimes.”
Abileah claimed that Shulster grabbed her banner and physically assaulted her. She sued him for $1 million.
Following the settlement, Shulster and Abileah issued a joint statement that read, in part, that “Mr. Shulster apologizes for any physical or emotional harm caused by him to Ms. Abileah. He agrees that he should have let the Capitol Police handle the situation. Ms. Abileah accepts this apology.”
Shulster said that about 10 minutes into Netanyahu’s speech, “I heard this very loud screaming to my left” and noticed a woman unfurling a banner.
“I just had this adrenaline rush,” Shulster said, adding that he immediately thought a weapon might have been hidden in the banner. “Instinctively I grabbed for this cloth. I did grab the cloth, and I didn’t let go.”
Shulster, a retired attorney, said he recalls holding the woman’s wrist and then letting go when security personnel appeared and removed Abileah from the hall.
“If I hurt her, I certainly apologize, but I don’t believe I hurt her,” Shulster said.
Abileah, who is Jewish and of Israeli descent, noted in a press release that “the settlement of my case has led to accountability for the assault against me intended to silence me from expressing my opposition to Israel’s violence against the Palestinians.” — jta & j. staff