Long article.

Greatly abridged from source. 

[Opinion. If West Bank colonists can try to intimidate foreigners, imagine how much more violent they are to the Palestinians who own the land they stand on. Killing or even wounding an American Congressman would sound the death knell for Israel.]

Armed Israeli Settlers Detained Ro Khanna. He Wants Their Illegal Outposts Demolished.

In an interview, Khanna recounts the fear at being detained and says anyone who visits the West Bank “would conclude that it is apartheid.”

Jonah Valdez

The Intercept: July 11 2026

SOURCE: https://theintercept.com/2026/07/11/ro-khanna-west-bank-settler-violence-palestine-israel/

While standing amid the rubble of the Palestinian village of Zanuta, one of Congressman Ro Khanna’s staffers spotted an Israeli settler wearing a large smile on his face with an assault rifle draped around his shoulder, peering at the group through a broken window.

Settlers had parked their car directly in front of them, blocking their exit along a narrow dirt road that juts from Highway 60 with rocky slopes and dry grass on both sides.

Over the next 75 to 90 minutes, Israeli settlers, who carried what appeared to be M4 assault rifles, intimidated and harassed Khanna and his group, who felt their fear rising from inside the van. The settlers proceeded to menace the Americans: They prevented the group from leaving the village, brandished their rifles, laughed and yelled taunts at the group, kicked the van’s tires, and wiped down the windows with their hands to gawk inside, recording the group and snapping photos. Khanna and Kasky said their security aide identified the men as members of the Hilltop Youth, an extremist settler group with a history of violent raids, which prompted more concern among the delegation. 

“It’s the most powerless I have felt,” Khanna told The Intercept. “They paraded around the van, laughing, smiling, brandishing the M4s. I have not been treated that way in any other country I’ve traveled to, including China. In any place that I have traveled, it’s the most arrogant and humiliating treatment of American citizens I have endured — I was quite shocked.”  

Two white pickup trucks later pulled up and out stepped more armed settlers, according to video and footage reviewed by The Intercept. Later, another vehicle arrived carrying a group of four men and women dressed in green military uniforms, which their security aide identified as Israeli military, Khanna and Kasky recalled. Rather than attempting to resolve the situation, the soldiers joined the group, laughing and talking with the settlers, and at one point, smoking cigarettes together, they said. 

Even after the security aide identified the group as an American delegation with a member of Congress, the settlers and soldiers did not budge. “The security person said this is the most concerned he’s ever been, and he’s done tours for decades,” Khanna recalled.

“I was sitting there like, ‘Are the Hilltop Youth about to blow a bunch of holes in our vehicle?’” Kasky remembered saying to himself. “I’m a Jewish school shooting survivor, and I’m sitting here looking at Jewish kids who have the eyes of a school shooter. So it was a very surreal experience for me.” 

Khanna and Kasky said when they military arrived, they did not help clear their path, instead laughing, talking, and smoking with the settlers.

Khanna’s 2022 remarks praising Israel’s tech industry drew criticism from pro-Palestine advocates, who at the time accused the lawmaker of using the visit as a “photo op” to “whitewash Israeli apartheid.” 

   

Khanna is a co-sponsor to the Block the Bombs bill and in April said he opposes the transfer of all U.S. arms — both offensive and so-called defensive weapons — to Israel. Last month, he attempted to strike a portion of the National Defense Authorization Act that seeks to codify Israel’s joint development of weapons with the U.S. and said he would also urge senators to oppose the pro-Israel proposal. Khanna is also a co-sponsor on the West Bank Violence Prevention Act, which seeks to codify sanctions on Israeli settlers, and in January, introduced a resolution opposing the expansion of settlements. In his war powers resolution against the Iran war, he said in June 2025, “U.S. involvement in Israel’s war with Iran is a red line.”

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