Andrei Cherny, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for Congress in Arizona CD1, was trapped inside the DNC headquarters in Washington DC last night as a demonstration by pro-Palestinian forces turned violent outside.

According to Cherny, “I was one of those evacuated from the DNC tonight I’m so grateful to the Capitol Police for putting themselves in harm’s way to protect us.”

Cherny tweeted troubling footage from the melee as police escorted him and other attendees out as demonstrators screamed at them. One protestor can be heard arguing persuasively for his point of view: “Why don’t you call for a ceasefire, you fucking pieces of shit in a suit? Call for a fucking ceasefire!” In Cherny’s video, the police seem to physically back someone up who has gotten too close.

According to the Washington Post account of events, “Demonstration organizers said at least 100 participants suffered injuries after being pepper-sprayed and pushed by police. Six officers suffered injuries after being pepper-sprayed and punched, police said on social media.”

On social media, Cherny actually answers the question raised by the colorful language of the protestor in his video.

“A one-sided “ceasefire” is called a “surrender” and no country—after a barbaric attack and with its citizens held hostage—would do that.”

That’s rather strong pro-Israel language by the standards of today’s Democratic Party, especially from someone looking to motivate the base in a contested primary. It’s a base that increasingly questions its party’s traditional support of Israel, and includes deepening support for the Palestine cause and occasionally even Hamas.

Cherny comes by his concern for Jewish extinction honestly. A former speechwriter for Bill Clinton, all four of Cherny’s grandparents are Holocaust survivors. In a remarkable coincidence, his grandparents and my mother were born in the same small town, Mukacheve, in what was then Czechoslovakia, but is now part of Ukraine. My mother fled in 1940 and eventually boarded the USS Washington to Ellis Island. There were pacifists demonstrating in the streets of America back then, too, urging the US not to take sides in the brewing war in Europe.