Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said armed Israeli settlers detained him and other U.S. citizens during a recent tour of the occupied West Bank in an incident that is thrusting the California congressman into the international debate over human rights in the Palestinian territories and U.S. foreign aid to Israel as he openly weighs a 2028 presidential bid.
Khanna said settlers surrounded his group’s van on Wednesday near the Palestinian village of Khirbet Zanuta in the southern West Bank. He described visiting an area that settlers had destroyed, including a school. He said settlers carrying U.S.-made weapons detained him and his party.
The congressman said the Israel Defense Forces later arrived but sided with the settlers. A group of officers who appeared to be police eventually secured the group’s release, he said.
“If they will do this to an American congressman, imagine what is happening to Palestinian families who are just trying to live,” Khanna said in a statement. “I expect Israel will prosecute the violent settlers and IDF soldiers who detained American citizens.”
Khanna said that the settlers “made a huge mistake.”
Visiting Israel has been a bipartisan rite for members of Congress for decades. Khanna instead chose a West Bank trip. His visit took place amid growing Democratic unease with Israel’s military conduct since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli war in Gaza.
At least one congressional representative was critical of the incident — for reasons other than the detention. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) dismissed the trip on a post to X.
“Sounds like another plea for publicity,” Murphy wrote. “Anything to get in front of the camera. Why else would you be there? It isn’t your country.”
Cameron Kasky, an aide to Khanna who was in the group, said on X that the visit included meetings with “many Palestinian Americans” and that the group was held for more than an hour.
The West Bank is territory Israel captured in 1967 and has occupied since. About 3 million Palestinians live there alongside hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers. Many nations have condemned the settlements, and in June, six countries, including Britain and France, issued new sanctions on Israeli settlers and settlements in the West Bank.
Israel sees the area as disputed land with a long history of Jewish residents.
In a statement about the incident involving Khanna, the Israeli military said troops and police intervened after receiving a report about the settlers blocking vehicles. “Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way,” it said.
In a video interview he reposted to X, Khanna described the settlers as young men who were “laughing.”
“I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us,” Khanna said. “It is the arrogance of power, of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity, and has created a toxic culture of oppression.”
The congressman is the second Democrat mulling a White House bid to visit the region in recent days. Rahm Emanuel, a former Chicago mayor and former White House chief of staff under President Obama, spoke Wednesday at Tel Aviv University. During his speech, Emanuel said that the U.S.-Israel alliance “is at a crossroads,” saying “it cannot stand or survive as it has been.”
The post Rep. Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers detained him in West Bank appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
