🇺🇸🇮🇱 Armed settlers held an American congressional delegation at gunpoint in the West Bank for 75 minutes, and the IDF took the settlers' side...
Ro Khanna walked me through it.
His group, American Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, a New York Times photographer, visited a destroyed village at its residents' invitation, the same trip other members of Congress made months earlier.
Settlers surrounded the van, one carrying an American-made M4 with a silencer, kicking tires, filming, taunting.
When the IDF arrived, he says the soldiers blockaded them in further and watched more settler cars gather.
What freed them was the US embassy working the phones.
Israel disputes his account; he says the released video contradicts the denial.
The aftermath stung him more than the incident.
No apology from Netanyahu when asked directly on Meet the Press, and America's own ambassador dismissed it as a PR stunt.
The nearest precedent anyone could find for an American congressman detained abroad by armed civilians was Leo Ryan, 1978, Jonestown.
His larger warning was generational math: Massie won under-50 voters by 30 points while losing over-50s by the same margin, and both parties' futures know it.
Which is why he's fighting Section 224, the provision merging US-Israeli military production, and thinks the light being shed on it may strip it in conference.
@RoKhanna