Anti-Israel activists crashed a Christmas party held by Michigan Democrats and caused a fight that left an elderly woman hospitalized, Bridge Michigan reported.
About two hundred people were attending the party held by the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party at a bar in Detroit on Saturday night when about two-dozen activists from the Palestinian Youth Movement and Party for Socialism and Liberation arrived to confront Congressman Shri Thanedar over his support for Israel, in particular his renunciation of his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America after the organization held an antisemitic rally in Manhattan in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas massacre of October 7.
Jonathan Kinloch, chairman of the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party, said that the demonstrators refused to leave when politely asked to and described them as "rioters."
Videos from the incident show demonstrators standing outside the bar and banging on the windows before the fight broke out.
One partygoer, Valeria Berra, said that the violence began when one of the protestors shoved her into a wall.
At one point, former Detroit police commissioner Bernice Smith, who is 91-years-old, hit protestors with her cane in what she said was an act of self-defense.
Democratic activist Bobbie Johnson, who was attending the party, was hospitalized with two black eyes. In a video posted to social media from the incident, Johnson's face was covered in blood as she said: “They came in here — they bust me in my head!”
Hours after the violence at the party, anti-Israel activists again targeted Congressman Thanedar and gathered outside his home at 3 am, honked horns, and shouted at him.
Thanedar, who was woken up by the early-morning protest, called the police, but the protestors dispersed before they arrived.
As of Wednesday, no arrests had been made in either incident.