US Representative Ro Khanna, No Friend of Ours

US Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) made a visit to Israel this past week for the express purpose, as he termed it, of seeing what the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the Occupied West Bank, as he called it) who live there are up against.

Remember that Khanna and Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) teamed up in Congress recently to fight the integration of the US and Israeli militaries. Together, they introduced an amendment to the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to strip funding and tech-sharing programs between the two countries. Thankfully, the leadership of the House of Representatives blocked the amendment from receiving a vote, which Khanna then termed “unconscionable”.

Both lawmakers argued such integration threatens American sovereignty and avoids congressional oversight while giving no detail as to why they thought this way. Of course, they both have a history of opposing expanded US involvement in Middle East conflicts. Khanna has also criticized Israel’s military conduct in Gaza and opposed funding for the Iron Dome.

During his visit this past week, he alleged that armed Israeli settlers and military personnel surrounded and detained his vehicle in the village of Turmus Ayya for over an hour. Khanna later criticized the Israeli Defense Forces for protecting the settlers

In a taped interview during his visit aired on DRM news (which can be seen here):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2NYa2veU-s

he made a number of statements which are patently untrue and incredibly difficult to believe coming from a presumably intelligent member of Congress.

In his opening remarks he said, “This is the first time that I have been acutely aware of being brown. I feel like people have seen me first as brown, second as an American congressman and third as an American citizen.”

A strange and unbelievable statement to be sure. While he may live in California, I have no doubt he has travelled widely in the US. Given that it is difficult to believe that in his forays through the US, when he may have walked into a local highway rest stop in Mississippi or Alabama that he was not “acutely aware of being brown.” Anyone who has travelled either in the American south or in very rural parts of most states which remain 90% white, knows exactly how he would have been perceived, even in 2026.

Then he turned his attention to the members of the IDF who arrived on the scene to assist. Khanna remarked: “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers. 21 and 22 years olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding. It is the arrogance of power, a power that has had no accountability, total impunity, and has created a toxic culture of oppression.”

Notice how he conflated the settlers who had blocked the road on which his van was travelling and the IDF troops who came to address the issue at hand. For sure, settlers living in Judea and Samaria are clearly in violation of the law if they stopped the vehicle in which the Congressperson was traveling and, if that is the case, they should be prosecuted. Sadly, it is common knowledge that most often there is no accountability for the illegal acts of the settler community. That must change, of course.

According to the DRM report, the IDF said in a follow up statement that troops and police officers intervened after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta. In the words of the IDF: “Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way.”

The interview then goes on, filmed in front of the home of the Palestinian host, a three-story building larger and more luxurious than what 90% of Israelis call home, yet Khanna could not resist continuing his diatribe.

He said: “What people in America are asking is, are you so bought and sold by the establishment and political donors that you cannot see human injustice? So, if you are unwilling to speak up for Palestinian human rights, if you are unwilling to speak up against the genocide in Gaza, the apartheid in the West Bank, then you are morally compromised and we cannot trust you to fight for Medicare for all, or to fight for workers over the billionaires, or to fight for justice and human rights, in the United States.”

What a mouthful eh? In speaking about challenges he faces from the electorate in the US, he throws down every canard spoken over the years about what is going on here with presumed linkage to the resultant inability of the voter to trust him because of what his position may be about Israel.

Sadly, that does seem to be the litmus test in American politics these days.  Nevertheless, it takes a certain amount of gall to invoke a non-existent genocide in Gaza as something American citizens care about when they want their representatives to increase their Medicare coverage or fight for the rights of workers in the US.

As for the genocide claim, even if we accept the Hamas figures of 20,000 children killed in Gaza since October 7^th as accurate (and most statisticians do not accept those numbers), there were also 87,200 live births there during that period as well.  Does that seem like Genocide? If Israel is guilty of Genocide, it is not doing it very well as all.

By the way, relating to a real Genocide these numbers pale by comparison.  Historical documents show that somewhere in excess of 700 babies were born and officially registered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1.1 million inmates were exterminated. This included Jewish newborns, who were put to death or left to die, and Romani children kept in the “Gypsy camp”. Almost none of these registered babies survived. THAT was Genocide.

As for apartheid, we have been down this road before.  Arab Israelis make up approximately 40% of the entire healthcare workforce in Israel, of which 50% are either doctors or dentists. Close to 10% of the judges in Israel come from the Arab community and one of the 15 supreme court judges is Arab as well.

Arab citizens of Israel have been elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, since 1949. In the current Knesset, there are 12 Arab lawmakers who serve in both Arab-majority and Jewish-majority political parties.

Those who understand what apartheid means and have studied its application in South Africa, will be quick to see that applying that terminology to Israel is grossly inaccurate. The citizens of his district may, of course, honestly believe that Khanna is, as he says, “morally compromised.” However, their reasons for feeling that way probably have very little to do with his position on Israel. My guess is that the good citizens of Milpitas and Sunnyvale in the southern part of Silicon Valley in  California (i.e. the district he represents), given a choice, would prefer that he spend his valuable time and exert his considerable influence on making their lives better and less time on bashing Israel. Not doing so would do more to make him morally compromised than anything that happens here.

Ro Khanna is no friend of ours nor does he understand Israel’s role as the canary in the coal mine against Iranian aggression. Perhaps when he returns to the US, he should spend more time with the large Israeli tech presence in his district to learn why supporting Israel is as much in the interest of the US as it is in ours.