The Israeli settlers had guns and Representative Ro Khanna was scared.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Khanna, the congressman from Silicon Valley who is exploring a 2028 presidential run, was visiting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a tiny Palestinian Bedouin village in the southern West Bank that was abandoned after escalating attacks from settlers and then demolished.<\/a><\/p>\n Suddenly, a car of men holding guns pulled up and blocked the narrow road out of the village. The men began taunting the congressman and his team, swearing at them in Hebrew and Arabic and kicking the tires of their minibus, according to accounts, photographs and video footage from Mr. Khanna, an aide and his security guard. A photographer for The New York Times traveling in a different vehicle also saw the interaction. Soon, a Jeep with more men arrived.<\/p>\n When two cars from the Israeli military pulled up, Mr. Khanna assumed the soldiers were there to help him pass. Instead, the soldiers smoked cigarettes, chatted with the men and after the settlers left, moved a car to block the road, he recounted.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life,\u201d said Mr. Khanna, who was eventually allowed to continue his journey after calls to the U.S. embassy and Israeli police. \u201cImagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n In an image shared by Mr. Khanna\u2019s team, vehicles were stopped outside Khirbet Zanuta. Mr. Khanna said the experience was the most frightening part of his trip to the West Bank. Credit…Khanna team<\/p>\n Mr. Khanna said the experience was the most frightening part of a three-day trip organized by a member of his staff.<\/p>\n In a statement on Saturday, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said that it had received a report of Israeli civilians unlawfully blocking the vehicles of foreign nationals and members of the news media near the village on Wednesday. Troops were dispatched and reopened the road, the spokesperson said. The military disputed that its soldiers had participated in blocking the exit and said that the identity of the armed civilian was being reviewed.<\/p>\n At a time when Israel is hemorrhaging support among Americans and particularly among Democrats, a tour of the West Bank is a new way for progressive politicians to signal their concern.<\/p>\n For decades, potential presidential aspirants made pilgrimages to Israel in hopes of burnishing their foreign policy credentials. Their trips followed a familiar itinerary: meetings with Israeli political leaders, sightseeing at the Western Wall, a tour of an Israel city damaged by Palestinian rocket fire and visits with Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, a city in the West Bank. The goal was to demonstrate their commitment to the United States\u2019 special relationship with a longtime ally.<\/p>\n But where past Democratic leaders headed to the region to show their support, so far today\u2019s Democratic presidential aspirants are going to bolster their credentials as critics.<\/p>\n Mr. Khanna said what he observed in the West Bank would inform his politics and perhaps his run for president. If he mounted a campaign, Palestinian rights would be a key focus, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI have something unique to offer about the injustices of Palestinians,\u201d he said \u201cI\u2019m going to go to every corner of America, regardless of whether I run or not, and tell their stories and tell the story of what is happening in the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n Violent attacks by Israeli settlers<\/a> on Palestinians in the West Bank have intensified<\/a> since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that set off the war in Gaza. The responses<\/a> of the Israeli authorities have generally ranged from unkept promises to address the problem, to blame shifting, to outright denial.<\/p>\n As Mr. Khanna was being blocked by settlers in the West Bank, Rahm Emanuel, another potential presidential candidate, was speaking at Tel Aviv University, where he delivered his own critique of Israel and \u201ca 23-state solution\u201d for Israel and all the Arab nations. He had been invited to give a speech at the university and also met with leaders in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cThe prime minister and his government have led Israel into a dead end,\u201d said<\/a> Mr. Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and White House chief of staff, who called for an end of U.S. military aid to the country.<\/p>\n Opposition to Israel has emerged as a key factor<\/a> in midterm races from Michigan to New York, as a progressive wing has positioned the issue as a central moral test for Democratic candidates. The visits this week by Mr. Khanna and Mr. Emanuel indicate that presidential aspirants are preparing for America\u2019s relationship with Israel to become a litmus test in 2028.<\/p>\n Democratic voters are now more likely to be critical of Israel and its government than they are to be supportive, according to several recent<\/a> polls<\/a>, a monumental change in American sentiment.<\/p>\n Mr. Khanna, too, has shifted on the issue. He has visited Israel three times, including in October 2024 as part of a bipartisan delegation that met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah II of Jordan.<\/p>\n Mr. Khanna says he still supports Israel\u2019s right to exist as a Jewish state, but criticism of the country has become increasingly central to his public image. He has repeatedly accused the country of genocide and endorsed calls to cut off U.S. support even for the Iron Dome missile-defense system.<\/p>\n Last month, Mr. Khanna went from a target of Track AIPAC, a group that opposes the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to winning its endorsement in his race for re-election this year.<\/p>\n What he saw in the West Bank, Mr. Khanna said, convinced him that the region\u2019s problems won\u2019t be solved just by replacing the Israeli leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things it\u2019s made me realize is how hard a two-state solution is going be in practice, that it\u2019s going require the removal of a lot of violent settlers,\u201d he said. \u201cThe on-the-ground reality is so much more brutal and hard and difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n On his trip, Mr. Khanna visited a number of Palestinian towns and met with families and local business owners. The mayors of Bethlehem, Beit Shair and Beit Jala described the restrictions on their freedom of movement and access to water. They told Mr. Khanna that they had never met a member of Congress, according to video recorded by his team, and would welcome his colleagues.<\/p>\n In the southern West Bank village of Umm al-Khair, he met with the family of Awdah Hathaleen, a well-known Palestinian activist whose work was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary \u201cNo Other Land,\u201d and who was killed by an Israel settler. On his final day, he visited a school where a 14-year-old was gunned down in broad daylight<\/a> by a settler and met with Palestinian Americans, who described stories of being beaten and threatened.<\/p>\n Mr. Khanna, who is Indian American and grew up in Pennsylvania, said he had never been so aware of his race as on this trip.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Palestine, I felt first as someone who was brown,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really saw the apartheidlike conditions, the inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cNo American would support this if they knew the details of what was going on here.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Khanna\u2019s trip was organized by Cameron Kasky, a Parkland school shooting survivor, who ran for Congress with a platform of opposing what he called Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza. Mr. Kasky, 25, withdrew from the race to<\/a> work with Mr. Khanna on combating settler violence in the West Bank. He now works for Mr. Khanna on digital strategy.<\/p>\n