They had American rifles. US Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat with his eye on the 2028 presidential race, found himself staring down the barrels of M4 guns in the West Bank. It was a stark, ugly introduction to the realities of the occupation. Settlers blocked his path. They held him.
Khanna was visiting a demolished Palestinian village when the confrontation happened. The school was gone. The homes were ruins. Then came the armed men. Khanna called them hoodlums. They blocked the road and summoned the Israeli military. According to Khanna, the soldiers backed the settlers, not the visiting American lawmakers.
It lasted over an hour. Cameron Kasky, an aide on the trip, confirmed they had to scramble for help, contacting the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Eventually, police arrived and cleared the road. The Israeli military later claimed they dispersed the crowd once they arrived on the scene near Khirbet Zanuta, a hamlet emptied by settler violence last year.
This is the raw edge of a growing Democratic rift. Khanna is not the only one looking at the region with fresh eyes. Rahm Emanuel was also in the area, warning that Israel’s current trajectory is poisoning its alliance with America. Khanna is now even more determined to run for the White House.
The party is fracturing over this. Voters are angry. Polls show Democratic approval of Israel has plummeted from 59% to just 22% in six years. Progressive lawmakers want to choke off the $3.8 billion in annual US military aid. They do not want American tax dollars funding the very weapons used to detain US congressmen.
Standing in Turmus Ayya, Khanna did not hold back. He accused his own party’s leadership of being completely out of touch. To him, the issue is simple. It is a moral test. He calls the West Bank situation apartheid. Israel, of course, denies this. They reject the label, just as they reject international consensus that these settlements are illegal. But for Khanna, the reality on the ground, experienced at the end of a rifle, speaks much louder than diplomatic denials.
