Prominent anti-Israel Democrat claims he was detained by armed settlers during West Bank visit
"And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, a US-made machine gun – and they detain us. They block off the road and call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans"
U.S. Democratic lawmaker and prospective 2028 presidential candidate Ro Khanna claimed he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made rifles during a West Bank visit this week. Khanna, noted for extreme anti-Israel rhetoric typical of the left flank of his party, presented the trip as an unfiltered look at the human toll of Israeli occupation of the territory it conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war.
Khanna told Reuters his group's van was surrounded by settlers wielding M4 rifles. The incident, he said, occured in a part of the southern West Bank where Palestinian residents faced frequent settler attacks.
"We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it," Khanna was quoted as saying.
"And these hoodlums come in with machine guns – M4, an American-made machine gun – and they detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans," Khanna said, referring to the Israeli military.
An aide to Khanna told Reuters they were held for more than an hour until "a group of officers who appeared to be police eventually intervened," ending the incident.
The Israeli military said troops and police officers intervened after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles.
"Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way," the military said.
Khanna is the second Democrat considering a White House bid to visit the region this week, coming on the heels of one-time Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.