New York Congressional Candidate Brad Lander Released After Israeli Military Detention in the West Bank
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Image: NPR.
Brad Lander, the Democratic nominee for Congress in New York’s 10th district and a former New York City comptroller, said Wednesday that Israeli security forces detained him in the occupied West Bank while he was helping Palestinian farmers harvest olives, and that he was later released with a warning while several dozen others in the group remained detained, according to NPR and NBC News.
Lander was harvesting near Nahalin, close to the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit, alongside about 80 American and Israeli rabbis and activists affiliated with a coalition of human rights groups. Israeli forces declared a closed military zone around the olive grove before detaining the group, NPR reported. Two Israeli lawyers who work on related cases told NPR it was the largest mass detention of activists in the occupied West Bank in at least a decade; longtime Israeli human rights activist Rabbi Arik Ascherman called the detentions “unprecedented.” The detentions come amid a spike in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers.
The Israeli military said harvesting in the area requires farmers to submit requests before the olive harvest season to coordinate “security of the area and maintain public order,” and that Palestinians there had not submitted a request, so soldiers and police detained those present. Lander told NBC News authorities told him his actions were illegal and the group was “causing a disturbance of public order.” “But I assure you, all we were doing was harvesting olives,” he said. He said he was apparently released because of his “public profile,” adding that authorities kept calling him “congressman.”
Lander ousted incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the 10th district primary, a race dominated by candidates’ views toward Israel; he has called the war in Gaza a “genocide,” NBC News reported.