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Ro Khanna accused the Israeli government and military of \u201clying\u201d on Sunday about the US congressman\u2019s detention by armed settlers and Israeli soldiers during a recent visit to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n
Khanna \u2013 a California Democrat \u2013 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> a government-backed \u201cethnic cleansing campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n During an interview with NBC News<\/a>\u2019 Meet the Press on Sunday, the California Democrat was asked about the Israeli military\u2019s claim that its soldiers \u201cquickly dispersed\u201d the Israeli civilians and reopened the blocked road.<\/p>\n \u201cThe IDF is lying,\u201d Khanna said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. \u201cWhat happened was unprecedented. They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official. You had these settlers brandishing M4 [rifles], kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us, mocking at us, videotaping us.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were detained for about 20 minutes, fearful of our lives. Then the IDF comes, four soldiers. They tell our translator that they\u2019re on the side of the settlers. They further detain us and block us in.\u201d<\/p>\n Khanna was also asked about comments by Israel\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared before him on Meet the Press and called the armed settlers who stopped the congressman\u2019s vehicle as a small band of \u201cjuvenile delinquents\u201d. Netanyahu maintained they are not part of what he called the \u201claw-abiding\u201d community of Israeli settlers.<\/p>\n Every Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard the prime minister, and he said Israel is a country of law and order,\u201d Khanna replied. \u201cLet 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\u2019s village and is a known person who has killed Palestinians,\u201d Khanna added, invoking the name of an Israeli settler who was recorded on video<\/a> about a year earlier firing what appeared to be a fatal shot that killed a Palestinian activist, Awdah Hathaleen, in the same region.<\/p>\n Despite video evidence, including images filmed by Hathaleen himself<\/a> as he was shot, Levi was not prosecuted by Israeli authorities for the killing.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Netanyahu \u201cneeds to have an investigation on these four IDF officers,\u201d Khanna added. \u201cSecurity cameras can see that they were involved in the detention of American citizens. How dare they mistreat people with an American passport that way?\u201d<\/p>\n Israeli officials responded to Khanna\u2019s 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 7 October 2023 Hamas attack. They told the New York Post<\/a>: \u201cCongressman Khanna didn\u2019t come to understand the situation \u2013 he came looking for a headline.\u201d<\/p>\n Khanna responded<\/a> on social media: \u201cThe Israeli government is lying to cover up for 4 IDF soldiers who aided violent settlers.<\/p>\n \u201cI have met with Israeli hostages and condemned the brutal, terrorist attacks of Oct 7. That does [not] excuse the IDF from detaining American citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview<\/a> on Sunday on CBS News\u2019 Face the Nation, Israel\u2019s US-born ambassador to the US, Michael Leiter, accused Khanna of visiting the West Bank as a political stunt \u2013 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 2028.<\/p>\n Leiter first complained that Khanna had shunned the Israeli government\u2019s 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\u2019s six-decade occupation of Palestinian territories seized in 1967.<\/p>\n He then suggested that the timing of Khanna\u2019s visit and revelation of his detention was suspicious. \u201cTo 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,\u201d Leiter said.<\/p>\n The ambassador\u2019s theory that Khanna went to the West Bank to shift attention away from Platner elicited an audible laugh<\/a> from Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Khanna had previously cautioned Israelis against detaining \u201clong-shot presidential candidates\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of interesting that somebody wants to declare a presidential run by running off to Israel,\u201d the Pennsylvania-born Leiter said. \u201cNot strange?\u201d<\/p>\n Khanna\u2019s account of what happened was supported by Nadav Weiman, the director of Breaking the Silence, who accompanied him.<\/p>\n \u201cArmed settlers were the first to arrive, and then, as has become the norm, Israeli soldiers joined them,\u201d Weiman wrote<\/a> on social media. \u201cTogether they detained the delegation for over an hour. The IDF is lying and not for the first time.<\/p>\n \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The incident was documented on social media<\/a> by Khanna\u2019s aide, Cameron Kasky, a Parkland school shooting survivor who works on digital strategy for the congressman. Kasky has been credited with<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cI am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,\u201d Kasky wrote<\/a> last year. \u201cBeyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide, I\u2019m a school shooting survivor-turned-activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.\u201d<\/p>\n