I think retaliation is your best case. In the two times we have had to contact support we had luck citing retaliation (it was all documented). Hopefully you can make a case with what they said to you.
I’ve had to call Airbnb several times and go through a couple of people before I convinced them to remove a review. As long as you have a reason backed by something in writing or listed in the rules you just need to try harder.