"Disgraceful": Rashid Khalidi Slams Israeli Attacks on Journalists, Detention of Rep. Ro Khanna

[Uncle Joe]

Armed Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have carried out a number of attacks in recent days targeting local Palestinians and foreign journalists, as well as detained U.S. Congressmember Ro Khanna during a fact-finding trip. Khanna said that when Israeli forces arrived, they sided with the settlers. "The U.S. government just merrily goes along funding these atrocities against American citizens, not to speak of atrocities against Palestinians who don't happen to be American citizens," says Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. "All of this is being done with our tax dollars."

Khalidi also speaks about plans for a permanent U.S. embassy in West Jerusalem, set to be built on Palestinian land stolen by Israel.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I'm with her.

[mopinko]

2. khanna knowingly walked into a military zone, and he's surprised to b stopped.

he’s blowing this out of proportion. nobody pointed a gun at him.
trying to wash off the stink of campaigning for a rapist.

[Eko]

3. The claim is that it is a closed military zone.

Ok. Its a closed military zone. Who stopped him? Settlers did in a closed military zone. I thought it was closed? Why were the settlers there if it was closed and why didn't the Israeli military arrest the Settlers or stop them for being in a closed military zone?
The Jerusalem Post reported

In the end, it turned out that the area was no longer a closed zone, and even when it was, it probably had been so to keep vigilante settlers away from harassing the Palestinians there, not to prevent a prominent US Congressman from touring the site.

as vigilante settlers do not have the right to take the law into their own hands and detain people.

Eventually, a police official arrived, and minutes earlier, the settlers had run from the scene, as if to signal they understood they should not have been there.

The IDF has said it identified at least one settler, who was an IDF officer off duty and is "clarifying" with him regarding his role - something which sounds like a small censure, but not major disciplinary actions.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-902409

So one of the settlers was an off duty IDF officer and the settlers left minutes before the police arrived. Almost as if someone informed the "off duty IDF officer" that it was time to leave. Probably one of Ro Khanna's team informed them. It certainly is not the IDF working with the settlers to protect them.