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Ro Khanna accused the Israeli government and military of “lying” on Sunday about the US congressman’s detention by armed settlers and Israeli soldiers during a recent visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Khanna – a California Democrat – had posted video evidence on social media of Israeli settlers and soldiers blocking the path of his convoy on Wednesday in the South Hebron hills, near the village of Zanuta, where Israelis have driven Palestinians from their homes in what Amnesty International calls a government-backed “ethnic cleansing campaign”.
During an interview with NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday, the California Democrat was asked about the Israeli military’s claim that its soldiers “quickly dispersed” the Israeli civilians and reopened the blocked road.
“The IDF is lying,” Khanna said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. “What happened was unprecedented. They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official. You had these settlers brandishing M۴ [rifles], kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us, mocking at us, videotaping us.
“We were detained for about ۲۰ minutes, fearful of our lives. Then the IDF comes, four soldiers. They tell our translator that they’re on the side of the settlers. They further detain us and block us in.”
Khanna was also asked about comments by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared before him on Meet the Press and called the armed settlers who stopped the congressman’s vehicle as a small band of “juvenile delinquents”. Netanyahu maintained they are not part of what he called the “law-abiding” community of Israeli settlers.
Every Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law.
“I heard the prime minister, and he said Israel is a country of law and order,” Khanna replied. “Let me be very specific: the prime minister needs to open an investigation on these violent settlers who are connected to Yinon Levi, who has destroyed Zanuta’s village and is a known person who has killed Palestinians,” Khanna added, invoking the name of an Israeli settler who was recorded on video about a year earlier firing what appeared to be a fatal shot that killed a Palestinian activist, Awdah Hathaleen, in the same region.
Despite video evidence, including images filmed by Hathaleen himself as he was shot, Levi was not prosecuted by Israeli authorities for the killing.
Israeli settler violence aimed at driving Palestinians in the region from their homes was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which Hathaleen had worked on.
Netanyahu “needs to have an investigation on these four IDF officers,” Khanna added. “Security cameras can see that they were involved in the detention of American citizens. How dare they mistreat people with an American passport that way?”
Israeli officials responded to Khanna’s detention by claiming that he had rejected their effort to shape his visit to the region by adding a meeting with former Israeli hostages held in Gaza after the ۷ October ۲۰۲۳ Hamas attack. They told the New York Post: “Congressman Khanna didn’t come to understand the situation – he came looking for a headline.”
Khanna responded on social media: “The Israeli government is lying to cover up for ۴ IDF soldiers who aided violent settlers.
“I have met with Israeli hostages and condemned the brutal, terrorist attacks of Oct ۷. That does [not] excuse the IDF from detaining American citizens.”
In an interview on Sunday on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Israel’s US-born ambassador to the US, Michael Leiter, accused Khanna of visiting the West Bank as a political stunt – both to distract from his past support of Graham Platner, the former Maine US Senate candidate accused of sexual assault, and to promote his potential run for the White House in ۲۰۲۸.
Leiter first complained that Khanna had shunned the Israeli government’s effort to help plan his trip, choosing instead to work with dissident groups like Breaking the Silence, an Israeli human rights group founded by former Israeli soldiers who oppose Israel’s six-decade occupation of Palestinian territories seized in ۱۹۶۷.
He then suggested that the timing of Khanna’s visit and revelation of his detention was suspicious. “To have this incident on Wednesday and wait to release it on Saturday, maybe this had more something to do with his support of Graham Platner beforehand and the difficulties he had with that, and trying to shift the focus to something else,” Leiter said.
The ambassador’s theory that Khanna went to the West Bank to shift attention away from Platner elicited an audible laugh from Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.
After Brennan interjected to say that Khanna had asked for the news to be held until after he left Israeli-controlled territory, Leiter further accused the congressman of making the visit to appeal to Democratic voters in the US.
Khanna had previously cautioned Israelis against detaining “long-shot presidential candidates”.
“It’s kind of interesting that somebody wants to declare a presidential run by running off to Israel,” the Pennsylvania-born Leiter said. “Not strange?”
Khanna’s account of what happened was supported by Nadav Weiman, the director of Breaking the Silence, who accompanied him.
“Armed settlers were the first to arrive, and then, as has become the norm, Israeli soldiers joined them,” Weiman wrote on social media. “Together they detained the delegation for over an hour. The IDF is lying and not for the first time.
“I went to speak with the soldiers to ask them to use their authority to remove the settlers who had threatened us and blocked the road. Instead, [I] saw how the settlers were giving the orders not the other way around.”
The incident was documented on social media by Khanna’s aide, Cameron Kasky, a Parkland school shooting survivor who works on digital strategy for the congressman. Kasky has been credited with using the hashtag #NeverAgain to call for an end to school shootings in the aftermath of that deadly attack, repurposing a slogan linked to Holocaust commemoration.
“I am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,” Kasky wrote last year. “Beyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide, I’m a school shooting survivor-turned-activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.”
