WATCH: Conservative Author Abigail Shrier Rushed by Transgender Activist in Israel

A large group of left-wing protesters in a suburb of Tel Aviv, Israel, attempted to intimidate American Jewish author Abigail Shrier during a book event Sunday  — and an Israeli media outlet claimed she got what she deserved.

Shrier is the author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters (2020), which critiques the phenomenon of transgenderism among teen girls, and has recently been translated into Hebrew.

As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, major Israeli book chains refused to stock the book, and left-wing groups pressured the original Tel Aviv venue to back out. A secondary venue was also pressured to cancel.

Ultimately, Shrier’s event was moved to a small venue in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan — whereupon the Israeli media, such as journalist Linda Dayan of the left-wing Ha’aretz daily, claimed the event was a failure.

Dayan’s “news” article about the book event was an outright endorsement of the activists’ attempt to censor free speech — an extraordinary stance for Ha’aretz, which styles itself as a defender of liberal values, to adopt:

When Sella Meir first announced the event – a talk with Shrier about the book, moderated by the publishing house’s lead editor, Leora Levian – it was slated for Tel Aviv’s ZOA House, but was soon relocated to Tel Aviv’s Social Space for unspecified reasons. The latter venue, which generally holds apolitical artistic events and community-building workshops, seemed an odd choice. It was. The managers canceled the event moments after learning of its content.

Sella Meir Publishing owner Rotem Sella promised to “work to hold the event at an alternative location,” which was quickly revealed to be Tel Aviv’s Carlton Hotel. But while Sella Meir was location-hopping, a group of teenage activists launched an initiative of their own: A Twitter account called “The Official Page for LGBTQ Terrorism” – a tongue-in-cheek nod to the Israeli far-right’s description of such activists – alerted the Carlton to the event’s content, and it promptly backed out.

As she celebrated these cancelations, Dayan scorned Shrier for the supposedly small turnout at the event, noting that attendees — including the author — had to wade through the angry crowd that gathered outside.

During the discussion, a protester rushed the stage, disrupting the book event and threatening Shrier’s physical safety before being removed from the venue. (Shrier, at right, was unharmed in the attempted attack.)

Dayan also claimed — falsely — that Shrier’s claims about transgenderism as a social phenomenon have been “refuted” by physicians, and gave credence to the argument by activists that her work is dangerous to them.

Shrier subsequently published a Twitter thread explaining what had happened — and criticizing journalists like Dayan, whom she said had behaved in “totalitarian” fashion to create the illusion that her ideas were rejected:

In addition to being an influential author, Shrier is also one of the most respected journalists in the U.S., having worked recently on the Twitter Files, exposing political bias and collaboration with the government at Twitter.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.