A sitting United States congressman reported an unexpected altercation during his visit to Israel last week. While supporters call for accountability, others have insisted that the altercation was nothing more than a big misunderstanding.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) made a post on Saturday detailing an alleged detention by Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces.
'It's too much, too insulting and humiliating to America. This is how revolutions start.'
The video and photo in Rep. Khanna's initial post show multiple vehicles in the road with a few men standing outside one of the trucks. The vehicles appear to be blocking the road from the perspective of a camera in a vehicle facing the scene.
Two of the men are apparently holding firearms. One of them appears to be wearing full military garb.
"Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine. When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention," Khanna said in the caption of the post.
"They made a huge mistake. You will be hearing more soon," he added, linking a New York Times article at the end of the post.
The initial post has since garnered 10 million views on X.
The New York Times added some context behind Khanna's three-day trip. On Wednesday, the Democratic congressman was visiting the abandoned Palestinian Bedouin village of Khirbet Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
According to the report, "a car of men holding guns pulled up and blocked the narrow road out of the village." The men allegedly began harassing and taunting Khanna and his team. Eventually, members of the Israeli military showed up, yet instead of dispersing the settlers, they began blocking the road as well.
While Khanna was eventually allowed to continue his journey, he reflected on the fear that this incident inspired in him: “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life. Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”
The Israeli military confirmed that troops were sent to the scene after receiving a report of settlers blocking vehicles near the Palestinian village, according to a statement by the Israeli military to Reuters.
"Upon their arrival, the troops dispersed the Israeli civilians and allowed the vehicles to continue on their way," the military told Reuters.
On Monday morning, the congressman reposted bodycam footage capturing what Khanna described as an "unprecedented, illegal detention of Americans by a foreign country."
The video, posted by Nadav Wieman, executive director of Breaking the Silence, shows the point of view of a man walking up to several men in one car and speaking with them briefly before returning to a van. However, the man does not refer to Khanna by name, nor does Khanna appear at any point in the video.
Of the video, Wieman wrote: "The IDF is lying about the detention of Rep. Khanna. I was on the ground with him that day, and my body camera captured us being detained by both settlers and Israeli soldiers. The IDF did not disperse the violent settlers, as they claim. They explicitly sided with them."
However, others, including Ambassadors Mike Huckabee and Michael Leiter, have insisted that there is "more to this story," as Huckabee put it.
In a "Face the Nation" interview, Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, explained that the congressman did not follow the proper protocol, leading to confusion: “There was not an alert. There was a question about visas, that's all.”
“When we requested he coordinate the trip with us, he rejected that by basically staying silent. So, that's unfortunate. This whole incident is unfortunate," he added.
Huckabee, U.S. ambassador to Israel, has acknowledged the incident in two separate posts, though both posts merely highlighted others' reporting on the incident, a fact which one of Huckabee's high-profile opponents attacked.
Additionally, Huckabee's two posts acknowledging the incident came several hours after Tucker Carlson's attack on his response:
An Amercian [sic] member of congress is threatened by foreign terrorists carrying American rifles, backed by a foreign military paid for by American taxpayers, and the US ambassador to that country says not a word in defense of his own countryman, and instead uses his social media accounts to promote his own vapid cable news appearances, which amount to propaganda for that same foreign country. It’s too much, too insulting and humiliating to America. This is how revolutions start. For the sake our nation, Mike Huckabee should be removed from his post immediately.
Blaze News contacted the Jerusalem Embassy's press office in an attempt to receive a comment from Huckabee but did not immediately receive a response.
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This week, the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a report accusing the Israeli military of deliberately targeting children. The commission alleged that more than 20,000 Palestinian children were killed and more than 44,000 were wounded between October 2023, after the Simchat Torah massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, and October 2025.
As with nearly every story of Israeli atrocities and Palestinian genocide, the report lacks essential context and frequently veers into outright fabrication. Writer Jonathan Sacerdoti quickly debunked the commission’s claims, noting the glaring lack of evidence that any of this is actually happening. Instead, the report relies heavily on unreliable Palestinian testimony.
The left understands that the conflict in the Holy Land reflects the larger conflict in the West between the secular left and the Christian right.
“The same pattern recurs case after case: a family account, a doctor’s guess about which weapon caused a wound, and a conclusion of premeditated murder,” Sacerdoti wrote. “Nothing connecting the dots.”
Missing from these accounts are the Hamas terrorists hiding behind — and under — those children.
It is well documented that Hamas uses human shields and places tunnels and command posts under schools, hospitals, and mosques to protect itself from the Israel Defense Forces. Hamas fighters also refuse to wear uniforms, allowing them to blend into civilian crowds at a moment’s notice. Worst of all, children used as cover for terrorists on the run are often recruited to become terrorists themselves.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers face severe restrictions in their pursuit of Hamas terrorists. They are forced to evacuate populated areas and warn civilians before operations. This gives Hamas time to escape, hide, and regroup.
That absurd cat-and-mouse game helps explain why Israel’s campaign against Hamas has been so painfully slow. Palestinian authorities hope to exhaust the Israelis and turn world opinion against them as civilian casualties mount over time.
For years, most American Christians who followed the conflict understood this challenge and supported Israel’s efforts. On one side stood a civilized liberal democracy attempting to follow the rules of war. On the other stood a failed Palestinian polity ruled by radical Muslim thugs who resort to lies, terror, and human shields.
Rather than build up their society, normalize relations with neighbors, and join the world economy, Palestinian leaders have kept their people in permanent refugee status for nearly 80 years. They have spent billions in foreign aid on unprovoked attacks against Israel and global public relations campaigns designed to excuse them.
The basic situation has not changed, but support for Israel has fallen significantly across the political spectrum.
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Some of that decline follows the confusing and frustrating conflict with Iran, which Israeli leaders helped instigate in hopes of weakening the chief sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah. But most of the resentment against Israel stems from ignorance and naivety among younger Americans.
Older generations who grew up in the 20th century had plenty of experience with corrupt, duplicitous foreign powers. Communist regimes lied. Islamist republics and dictatorships lied. Much of what came from the non-Western world had to be treated as propaganda designed to keep corrupt rulers in power.
And the corruption was not limited to governments. In many of these societies, business owners exploited workers, law enforcement preyed on citizens, political authorities embezzled public funds, and ordinary people learned to survive by surrendering agency and blaming suffering on outside forces beyond their control.
As a result, many of these countries never advance. They rely on Western support to prop up their existence. Trust is so low that collective action fails, and reform becomes nearly impossible. Foreign aid then worsens the dysfunction and corruption it was supposed to relieve.
That is the story of the Palestinians.
Their leaders blame all their problems on the West, especially Jews and white Westerners, and spread falsehoods both to the world and to their own people. They are always the passive victims. Failure merely happens to them; they never cause it.
As tiring as it is, the endless lies that flow from this learned helplessness must be challenged every time. Accepting baseless claims of genocide in Gaza will only prolong violence in the region and delude otherwise sensible Americans.
On the basis of dubious testimony and little hard evidence, many Americans now suspect Israel — and Jews generally — while foolishly trusting the fanatics who use children as shields and soldiers to terrorize innocent civilians.
Worse, the logic behind siding with the Palestinians carries over into American politics. That is why radical leftists, especially the socialist candidates who recently won primaries in New York City, talk so obsessively about Israel.
They believe lies about Palestinians because those lies help them believe their own lies. They study the techniques of “Pallywood,” the Palestinian propaganda machine, so they can repurpose them in their own campaigns. They express solidarity with “besieged” Palestinians so they can express solidarity with “besieged” American minorities. They accept the con so they can con others.
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All of it amounts to a political Ponzi scheme that works only so long as enough people believe it. By the time the truth comes out, the liars have often taken control and transformed the country into an authoritarian Third World mess. Look at the United Kingdom.
Jesus famously said, “The truth will set you free.” The logical inverse is also true: Lies will enslave you. When lies become commonplace and trust evaporates, every path to progress and flourishing closes.
Understandably, many younger people on the right want to stop talking about Israel and Palestine. Many Christians want to give up defending Israel’s actions. But that cedes moral and political ground to younger leftists who love talking about these issues and know exactly what they are doing.
The left understands that the conflict in the Holy Land reflects the larger conflict in the West between the secular left and the Christian right.
If the right wants to win that fight, it must become better at standing for truth and honesty. For now, that means supporting Israel’s fight against Hamas and Hezbollah and rejecting the lies that continue to pour out of this war.
Last year, I set out to tell a story that much of the media seemed determined to distort.
On June 8, 2024, Israeli special forces launched a daylight raid into the heart of Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Four hostages, Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were being held in civilian homes. The operation unfolded under heavy fire. Intelligence had to be near-perfect. One wrong move would mean death for everyone involved.
I documented the firsthand accounts of IDF soldiers on the ground, the grieving parents of a fallen hero, and the elite special operators who carried out one of the most daring hostage rescues in modern history — Operation Arnon.
Any sovereign nation subjected to such a vicious assault bears both a political and moral responsibility to bring its citizens home.
The mission succeeded. The four civilians, kidnapped on October 7, 2023, returned home alive. But not without cost. Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora was mortally wounded. The operation, originally known as Seeds of Summer, was renamed in his honor.
The heroes of Operation Arnon were buried under headlines focused solely on casualty counts or international criticism. While the world debates the operation’s justification, the firsthand accounts in my documentary "Operation Arnon" reveal its compelling operational necessity.
Operation Arnon was a proportionate and justified response to the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas and other allied terrorist organizations.
Any sovereign nation subjected to such a vicious assault bears both a political and moral responsibility to bring its citizens home. This “no man left behind” ethos is present in any nation that places value on the lives of its civilians and military personnel. Every life matters. Everyone comes home.
The recent combat search and rescue operation for the United States F-15E pilots epitomizes this dogma. On April 3, 2026, two U.S. pilots ejected from their damaged aircraft, landing into Iranian territory. U.S. joint forces immediately executed a CSAR, deploying over 150 aircraft, hundreds of U.S. troops and special operators, including Delta Force and Dev Gru, and CIA operatives.
The United States actions demonstrated the same unyielding commitment to the ethos that fueled Operation Arnon, an ironclad conviction that no sovereign nation can abandon its people to terrorists.
Yet Jeremy Laurence, spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for Human Rights, preferred to denounce the operation’s success, questioning its grounds for “distinction, proportionality, and precaution,” drawn from the conclusion that hundreds of civilians had been haphazardly slain as a result of the operation.
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The numbers of civilian deaths were reported by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, run by the Hamas government. The second “civilian” house has been confirmed to be owned by the Al-Jamal family, whose son, Abdullah Al-Jamal, was a Hamas operative and was complicit with the hostages being held in his house.
Article 34 of the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits hostage-taking in armed conflicts. Article 51 of the U.N. Charter affirms the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member state. This right, subject to necessity and proportionality, has been invoked in precedents such as the 1976 Israeli Operation Entebbe and supports targeted rescue operations.
Despite a long history of being held to a double standard by much of the international community, Israel continues to demonstrate what it means to value life. The U.N. General Assembly routinely passes more resolutions condemning Israel than against the rest of the world combined, including regimes like Syria, Iran, North Korea, and China.
In contrast, other nations conducting counterterrorism or rescue operations, such as U.S. and French strikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, or broader military campaigns in urban areas, often face far less sustained international condemnation.
The heroic actions of every soldier who took part in Operation Arnon embody the enduring belief that freedom and human dignity are worth fighting for, even at the highest cost. That commitment remains a powerful reminder to the world that some principles are not negotiable.
The Israel Defense Forces may have more explaining to do after one of its soldiers destroyed a crucifix with a sledgehammer in Debel, Lebanon, as more than half a dozen others looked on.
While the IDF tried to resolve the incident with a series of social media posts, more details have emerged in the aftermath of this story, raising more questions about the IDF's account.
'Are they playing us?'
Following the incident, the IDF announced that both the soldier who filmed the incident and the soldier who destroyed the crucifix would be jailed for 30 days, and the onlookers would be questioned. The IDF also posted a still photo of the supposed replacement crucifix that it claimed to have helped provide.
However, a conflicting version of events has emerged.
RELATED: IDF soldier caught smashing Jesus statue with sledgehammer — officials and critics react
Photos posted to the X account called Hillbilly Catholic on Wednesday afternoon went viral, and the messages accompanying the photos claimed that the Italian forces of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon had replaced the crucifix.
Among those pictured in the photos are several soldiers with Italian flags on their uniforms that seem to match that of U.N. personnel, a few priests, and what appears to be the apostolic nuncio to Lebanon, Bishop Paolo Borgia.
In another post, Hillbilly Catholic included a screenshot of the IDF's post with the crucifix it claimed "replaced" the one its soldiers had destroyed. The crucifixes in the IDF post and the Hillbilly Catholic posts differ in shape, color, detail, and style.
"Are they playing us?" Hillbilly Catholic asked.
The photographs posted by Hillbilly Catholic were part of a larger set of photos and video from what appears to be a local Debel account on Facebook called Debel Alerts.
On Tuesday, Debel Alerts made a post claiming an Italian priest named Father Claudio was coordinating with UNIFIL Commander General Diodato Abagnara to replace the crucifix in its original spot. The post added that Father Claudio revealed that "a gesture of support" was on its way from UNIFIL and expected to arrive within 48 hours.
There is also a video on the Debel Alerts' timeline of the new crucifix statue being transferred.
On Wednesday, Debel Alerts posted several photos of the installation of the new crucifix with the help of UNIFIL. The photos show soldiers and priests standing side by side in front of the newly installed crucifix statue.
The new crucifix also appears to have been placed in the exact spot where the old one was destroyed, a comparison of the surroundings revealed.
An official account called Debel Municipality posted more photos confirming Bishop Paolo Borgia's presence during the procession and installation of the new crucifix.
However, this account also revealed something unexpected.
Some online users scoffed at the IDF's post of the new crucifix, claiming that the crucifix looked like a small wall crucifix or that the photo was manipulated.
Yet Debel Municipality posted a photo of what appears to be that crucifix during the procession. A man can be seen standing next to some priests and behind some servers while holding the much smaller crucifix that appeared in the IDF's post.
While this photo seems to debunk the claims that the IDF's post was fake or manipulated, other questions remain.
First, neither Debel Alerts nor Debel Municipality make any mention of the IDF's alleged efforts to help replace the crucifix, despite the IDF's claim that "Northern Command worked to coordinate the replacement of the statue from the moment it received the report of the incident."
Similarly, the IDF did not make any mention of UNIFIL's role nor Bishop Paolo Borgia's presence in the town this week, despite their clear roles in the project.
Further, the IDF's "replacement" is not the actual replacement. The crucifix that UNIFIL apparently provided was placed in the same place as the old one and has a similar size and style, while the IDF one, though apparently real, is significantly smaller and not installed in the same place.
Finally, the IDF has not posted any follow-up with a photo of the other crucifix that UNIFIL helped replace, suggesting that the other, smaller crucifix is the only "replacement" they are claiming to have helped with. It is not clear whether the IDF actually provided the smaller crucifix to the community, despite its claim.
Blaze News contacted the IDF, UNIFIL, Debel Municipality, and the Nunciature of Lebanon via the Vatican Press Office but did not immediately receive a response.
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The Israel Defense Forces have been painted into a corner recently, as they were forced to acknowledge and respond to an atrocious act of sacrilege committed by those in their ranks.
Blaze News previously reported on two separate incidents involving IDF soldiers desecrating Christian sites and symbols.
The secular headquarters 'have very little control of the behavior on the ground.'
The first incident involved a uniformed IDF soldier smashing a statue of Jesus Christ in the face with a sledgehammer. The second, which occurred in late November 2024, was a video showing the desecration of an Orthodox church in Deir Mimas, Lebanon.
While the IDF has acknowledged both incidents to some degree, the extent of their response to the recent viral photo of the IDF soldier smashing the Christ statue was a rare step for Israeli leadership.
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While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was "shocked and saddened" by the photo, the IDF announced punishments following the conclusion of their investigation.
The IDF announced Tuesday that both the soldier who photographed the smashing of the statue and the one who destroyed it would be removed from combat duty and receive 30 days of military detention.
Six additional soldiers who were present at the scene failed to intervene, stop, or report the incident. They have been "summoned for clarification discussions," and "further command-level measures will be determined" moving forward.
Yet a new article from the Telegraph has suggested that these incidents may be a symptom of changing religious dynamics within the IDF's ranks.
The Telegraph reported that a stricter sense of religious observance has begun to change the IDF culture.
Citing examples such as female soldiers being reprimanded for dressing "immodestly" and other soldiers being jailed for barbecuing on Shabbat, the Telegraph suggested that the IDF's culture would be "almost unrecognizable" to the Israeli soldiers of the first decades of the state's existence.
It is common knowledge that Israel's military has historically been a secular institution within a largely secular government.
However, the author suggested that the IDF's ranks are beginning to fill with Israelis who adhere to a "messianic and ultra-nationalist ideology" that informs the very reason they joined the military service in the first place.
This trend has caused tensions to rise between the religious soldiers and the generally secular leadership.
Chairman of the Secular Forum Dr. Ram Vromen told the Telegraph that the leadership views these changes with hostility.
"For years before October 7, secular people increasingly identified the combat roles with things they were not sympathetic to, like the occupation in the West Bank, so they volunteered for other roles," he said. "But the religious and the religious nationalist recruits volunteer for combat roles enthusiastically."
Vromen added that the secular headquarters "have very little control of the behavior on the ground," likely referring to the recent incidents that have harmed the IDF's public image.
It was later argued that the IDF, even if its leadership remains secular, faces a dilemma.
Between growing personnel shortages during the war and an increasing reliance on these religious soldiers to do the warfighting, the military cannot afford to lose them; however, the religious cultural shift continues to solidify its hold on the institution through an "increasingly muscular military rabbinate" and a takeover of most educational activities in the military.
As a result, the IDF may be forced to deal with increasingly popular ideas such as the expansionist "Greater Israel" project, along with more incidents like those mentioned above.
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This was the purpose of the whole stunt, prominently connecting the name Ro Khanna with the phrase "presidential candidates" in the establishment newsletter.
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