Both the IDF and members of US Representative Ro Khanna’s entourage released additional information on Monday about last week’s incident, in which he was detained for around an hour during a visit to the West Bank.
A new picture has emerged thanks to extensive testimony from both sides and newly released video evidence. In some ways, this picture is less worrying than the original reports. However, it still demonstrates the quandary Israel finds itself in when it comes to the West Bank and the decreasing levels of US support.
In the end, it seems that the Jewish settlers who stopped Khanna’s vehicle from leaving the area believed that he had traveled illegally into a closed military zone.
But this point doesn’t work in Israel’s favor.
Khanna had said his group’s van was surrounded by settlers wielding M-4 rifles. He had been touring Khirbet Zanuta, whose Palestinian residents were forcibly displaced by settler raids in December 2024.
As it turns out, the area was no longer a closed zone. Even when it was, it had likely been so to keep settlers from harassing the Palestinians. The area’s restrictions were not intended to prevent a US Congressman from touring the site.
However, Khanna also made mistakes here.
Khanna did not coordinate with IDF
He didn’t coordinate his travel plans with the IDF, which meant that official protections couldn’t be arranged for him. Worse still, none of the IDF officials were aware that he was in the area. This, in turn, meant that the IDF couldn’t issue special instructions to soldiers on what the protocol was should they encounter him.
This still doesn’t help Israel’s case, though. Vigilante settlers do not have the right to take the law into their own hands or to detain people.
Settlers can make reports to the police, as they did during this incident. They have the right to keep tabs on someone they deem suspicious, but they cannot detain them.
What follows next is, unfortunately, a series of confusing actions and general incompetence. This does absolve Israel of accusations of deliberate harassment, but it’s not entirely helpful. Israelis are in charge of the area and, thus, bear responsibility for any and all incidents that occur there.
Settlers reported a suspicious car in a closed zone to the police. Police passed this report to the IDF, which sent a group of young soldiers to assess the situation.
Soldiers did not actively remove settlers
Contrary to the IDF’s original reports, the soldiers did not try to move the settlers out of the area.
The soldiers believed that they were temporarily babysitting a suspicious car as they waited for the police to show up. However, because this was not a closed zone, the soldiers had no right to detain Khanna until police arrived.
At one point, Nadav Weiman, who was with Khanna, approached the soldiers and informed them of who Khanna was. He told them that the entourage had spoken to police headquarters, which had said the soldiers should let Khanna leave.
Not only did the soldiers not let Khanna leave, but one of them asked Weiman if he was an official in Breaking the Silence (which he is). The soldiers were seemingly ready to punish Khanna to get back at Weiman for being a member of a group disliked by many in the IDF. The soldiers said they would only let Khanna go if a police official came to the scene.
This part of the standoff went on for either 20 or 40 minutes, depending on who you ask.
Eventually, a police official showed up. Minutes before police arrived, the settlers fled, seemingly understanding that they should not have been there.
The IDF said it has identified at least one settler, who was an off-duty IDF officer, and is “clarifying” his role to him. This sounds like a small censure – a far cry from major disciplinary action.
What the soldiers should have done was contact police headquarters themselves if they did not believe Weiman. They shouldn’t have made Khanna wait until a police official arrived.
Alternatively, they could have just let Khanna go. Outside of driving into a questionable area, Khanna presented no threat to them.
Going forward, Israel needs to ensure that settlers cannot detain third parties outside of their specific village security zone. Israel must also prosecute settlers who take the law into their own hands, well-intentioned or not. Also, IDF soldiers need to be ready to treat US officials and other Western diplomats as the VIPs that they are.
This kind of failure cannot be allowed to occur again. Bad actors, who seek to embarrass Israel on a global scale, may take this as an opportunity to set up a trap for IDF soldiers to fall into. The IDF must act with the utmost competence.