Armed Israeli settlers waylay US congressman in West Bank, deepening diplomatic rift

Armed Israeli settlers stopped and detained Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and his delegation during a July 8 fact-finding visit to the West Bank.

Khanna said his group was examining a Palestinian village that settlers had destroyed when masked men carrying American-made rifles surrounded his delegation’s van and blocked the road.

Khanna told Reuters they were just looking at the village, adding, “And these hoodlums come in with machine guns — M4, an American-made machine gun — and they detain us.”

Khanna said Sunday that the settlers kicked the van’s tires, mocked and filmed the delegation, and left its members fearing for their lives. He described the initial confrontation as lasting about 20 minutes. Cameron Kasky, an aide traveling with Khanna, said the entire episode lasted more than an hour as the group appealed to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for help.

Khanna said four Israeli soldiers who arrived at the scene did not remove the settlers but instead blocked the delegation and told its translator they were on the settlers’ side. Israeli police eventually intervened and allowed the group to leave, according to Khanna’s office.

The Israeli military dismissed the congressman’s account of the incident, saying simply that troops and police arrived after receiving a report that Israeli civilians were blocking vehicles, dispersed the civilians, and reopened the road. Khanna responded just as plainly Sunday that “the IDF is lying.” He called for investigations of both the armed settlers and the soldiers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the settlers as a small group of “juvenile delinquents,” while Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter accused Khanna of staging a political stunt. Khanna denied that charge and said the government was attempting to protect soldiers who aided violent settlers.

“If this can happen to an American member of Congress, imagine what life is like for Palestinians who have no smartphones, no security, and no national platform,” Khanna said.

The same day, Israeli authorities detained four suspects accused of attacking foreign journalists traveling to the West Bank village of Sinjil. The assailants allegedly blocked and damaged the journalists’ vehicle while armed with clubs and knives, according to the Israeli military.

The incident came as prominent American political figures warn that the Netanyahu government is rapidly eroding support for the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, speaking Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” after delivering a sharply critical address in Tel Aviv, said Israel had gone from a nation known for “technological prowess” to a “territorial pariah.”

For a small country, Emanuel said, that trajectory “is not survivable.” He said support for Israel had fallen into the low 20s and called the alliance’s present direction unsustainable. Emanuel blamed Netanyahu’s government for treating every security challenge as a nail and military force as the only hammer, while allowing diplomacy, political persuasion, and cultural influence to atrophy. Emanuel, a staunch Israel supporter, is the son of an Israeli-born former member of a Jewish paramilitary group that operated against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The detention of a member of Congress by armed settlers provides a vivid example of the forces driving the estrangement between the Netanyahu government and the U.S.

As Zeale News previously reported, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote in a June 18 Haaretz column that Israel was targeting the West Bank’s Palestinian communities with an “organized, systematic, state-funded campaign of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” Olmert said thousands of settlers involved in “these crimes” could not operate without government “assistance, protection, backing, and funding.”

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has offered similar warnings in recent remarks about the West Bank.

“There is no rule of law,” the cardinal recently said. “Israeli settlers are allowed to do anything.”

Pizzaballa said settlers establish checkpoints, cut down trees, block Palestinians from cultivating their land, and commit assaults, thefts, and insults that have become routine.

Those concerns have become especially urgent for Palestinian Christians. Zeale News reported last week that an American Catholic apostolate is funding a Bible camp for children in Taybeh, the West Bank’s last entirely Christian town, while a major settler assault erupted in neighboring Deir Jarir. The Vulnerable People Project warned that the attack was occurring under military protection and could spread to Taybeh.

Khanna’s detention adds to mounting pressures on Washington to confront the pattern decried by Palestinians, Israeli human-rights advocates, Church leaders, a former Israeli prime minister, and now a growing list of prominent, Israel-supporting American political figures.

>> Report: Israeli government shows limited concern as Holy Land Christians face rising attacks <<