Reuters —
Democratic lawmaker Ro Khanna said he was detained by Israeli settlers armed with American-made rifles during a visit to the West Bank this week that he called an unfiltered look at the human cost of the Israeli occupation as he weighed his 2028 presidential bid.
Speaking to Reuters on Thursday in a Palestinian village, Hanna said his group’s van had been surrounded by settlers armed with M4 rifles a day earlier while touring parts of the southern West Bank where residents often face settler attacks.
“We were in a village that Israeli settlers destroyed, they destroyed the school, they destroyed this village, and we just looked at it,” said Hanna, a progressive lawmaker from California in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“And these hooligans come with machine guns – an M4, an American-made machine gun – and they hold us up. They block the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the American side,” Hanna said, referring to the Israeli military.
Hanna’s aide with the group, Cameron Caskey, said they were held for more than an hour and contacted the US Embassy in Jerusalem for help. A group of officers who appeared to be police officers eventually intervened, leading to their release, Caskey said.
The Israeli military said troops and police intervened after receiving reports of settlers blocking vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, a small Palestinian village whose residents were forcibly displaced by brutal settler raids following Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023.
“Upon arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way,” the military said.
Israeli police did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Khanna is the second Democrat to consider a White House offer to visit the region this week. On Wednesday in Tel Aviv, Rahm Emanuel, who was former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, said Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians were undermining support for the US-Israel alliance.
Asked if he was running for president, Khanna replied: “I am seriously considering the issue and am more determined to consider it after this trip.”
Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians has become a flashpoint in Democratic politics ahead of November’s U.S. midterm elections, contributing to the primary defeats of some incumbent lawmakers who have been attacked by left-wing challengers who accuse them of supporting Israel’s right-wing government.
Israel’s favorability rating among Democrats fell from 59% in 2018 to 22% in May, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
While Israel has long enjoyed strong bipartisan U.S. support, a growing number of Democrats in Congress are now pushing to end military aid, which amounts to $3.8 billion a year and includes funding for light weapons such as M4 rifles and interceptor missiles that Israel has used in its war with Iran.
Overlooking a valley dotted with settler outposts on the outskirts of Turmus Aya, a village home to thousands of Palestinian-American dual citizens, Hanna said he believed his party’s leadership “had no idea how much of a moral test Palestine, Gaza and Israel had become.”
He said he decided to make the visit exclusively to the West Bank, which would be led by Palestinians, to give him an unfiltered view of the territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
“If you are not willing to stand up for the human rights of Palestinians, if you are not willing to stand up against genocide in Gaza and apartheid in the West Bank, then you are morally compromised,” Khanna said.
Israel denies accusations that it committed genocide in Gaza or imposed an apartheid regime in the West Bank, which has a population of about 3 million Palestinians and about 500,000 Jewish settlers.
Most countries and the United Nations consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention’s ban on the transfer of civilians into occupied territory.
Israel rejects this position, saying the West Bank is disputed territory where Jews have been present for millennia. Palestinians view the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, as part of a Palestinian state.
Support remains strong among Republicans, although some members of Trump’s coalition are also calling for the aid to be cut off.