Democratic Congressman of California Ro Khanna got a taste of Palestinians’ daily life under occupation on July 8. While visiting the occupied West Bank, Khanna said he and his team were stopped by armed Israeli settlers who were soon joined by four Israeli soldiers that proceeded to hold the group for over an hour. Khanna was visiting Khirbet Zanuta, a Bedouin village whose residents were forced to flee in late 2023 following a series of violent raids by settlers from a nearby outpost.
When asked about the incident in a televised interview with NBC News on July 12, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mischaracterized settler violence in the West Bank, blaming it on “vigilantes” and “150 juvenile delinquents.”
But Netanyahu’s framing obscures an underlying truth: Israeli settler violence is state-backed. Settlers responsible for attacking, harassing, displacing, and killing Palestinians operate with the government’s financial, material, and legal support.
That violence has reached unprecedented levels under Netanyahu’s current government. In 2026, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has documented an average of six settler attacks per day, a rate higher than any year on its record. These attacks have resulted in casualties, property damage, or both and have killed 13 Palestinians.
Khanna said the soldiers told his translator they were “on the side of the settlers,” though the Israeli military disputed Israeli soldiers’ role in the incident. Khanna’s account, corroborated by witnesses, is consistent with extensive documentation by Human Rights Watch, other organizations, and media reports. Settler attacks often occur with Israeli soldiers’ participation or with soldiers standing by and failing to intervene.
Netanyahu told NBC News that Israel is a “country of laws, and when people break the laws, we take them to court.” However, numerous reports by Israeli human rights organizations and media show that the state authorities fail to prosecute settlers for crimes committed against Palestinians, effectively granting them immunity.
The US has given Israel $24 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023, and the Trump Administration overturned Biden-era sanctions on dozens of violent settlers in January 2025. Representative Khanna has seen firsthand the behavior of members of the military that money is funding and who those sanctions targeted. He and his colleagues should take measures to suspend that funding and impose sanctions on settlers and officials responsible for ongoing serious abuses.
