Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna says armed Israeli settlers briefly detained his group during a visit to the occupied West Bank this week, where he witnessed the aftermath of alleged settler attacks on a Palestinian village. Khanna says the incident occurred near the ancient village of Shiloh in Turmus Ayya, where a huge percentage of Palestinians hold U.S. citizenship. “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers-21- and 22-year-olds with guns-laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding, having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American Embassy is concerned. It is the arrogance of power-of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity, and has created a toxic culture of oppression,” Khanna said. The IDF said they were called “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 Israeli police and American embassy reportedly offered no comment. Khanna said he faced intimidation, racism, and disrespect despite being an American lawmaker, renewing criticism of U.S. policy toward Israel and the treatment of Palestinians. “Being in the West Bank and in Israel is the first time that I have really been acutely aware of being brown. I feel like people have seen me first as brown, second as an American congressman, and third as an American citizen,” he said. “I am certainly probably the first American politician who’s been detained by the IDF and Israeli settlers. I mean, 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. and these hoodlums come in with machine guns-an 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. “What people in America are asking is: Are you so bought and sold by the establishment and political donors that you cannot see human injustice?” “So, if you’re unwilling to speak up for Palestinian human rights, if you’re unwilling to speak up against the genocide in Gaza, the apartheid in the West Bank, then you are morally compromised, and we cannot trust you to fight for Medicare for All, or to fight for workers over the billionaires, or to fight for justice and human rights in the United States,” Khanna said.
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