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The detention of Brad Lander, the former New York City comptroller and Democratic nominee for New York’s 10th Congressional District, during an olive harvest near Nahalin has become the latest flashpoint in the international obsession over the Jewish heartlands of Judea and Samaria.
According to Arutz Sheva, Lander participated on Wednesday in an olive harvest alongside Palestinian Arab farmers and volunteers associated with the left-wing organization Rabbis for Human Rights. The organization said approximately 90 activists, including Israeli volunteers and visiting American non-Orthodox rabbis, accompanied the farmers. Lander’s animosity for Israel has played no small part in his current election race, and the timing associated with the US midterm elections could hardly be ignored by anyone. As if on que, Landers subsequently wrote on social media: “I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank.” He added: “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know” (Arutz Sheva).
As Lander described his version of events, he referenced the situation having taken place at “Nehalim” which is inaccurate. Nehalim is a Jewish agricultural community situated in central Israel, but the location where the incident took place was actually Nahalin, an Arab village near Bethlehem. The irony of this inaccuracy is that while Lander was attempting to make a political statement about Israeli authority over Judea and Samaria he mislabeled the location in which his efforts were taking place. Also, his description of occupation and international law have a bearing with little respect for the facts. See more HERE.
The IDF stressed that advance coordination is necessary to preserve public order and safeguard the safety of all individuals in the area.
As reported by Arutz Sheva, the IDF indicated that the landowner and those accompanying them failed to make arrangements for the harvest which is required before the olive-picking season. The uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community resulted in the deployment of IDF soldiers, Border Police personnel, and district police officers due to ongoing security risks associated with the harvests. The landowner was informed of the harvesting coordination requirements so as to be able to arrange access on a future date (Arutz Sheva).
The IDF went on to highlight that harvesting activities which had been coordinated according to their security measures were ongoing throughout Judea and Samaria with some 100 authorized harvests having already taken place in the season, with dozens of tons of olives having been collected under the indicated security arrangements, and without any unusual incidents having occurred. They also noted that the coordination was intended to protect public order as well as the safety of all involved, and that access to designated areas was exclusively restricted to agricultural work.
The left-wing activist group, Rabbis for Human Rights claimed that the farmers had been unable to reach their olive groves since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, massacre. Members of this group were among those detained. According to the organization, the group began harvesting prior to the arrival of the security personnel which took place some two hours later, following which the area was declared to be a closed military zone for the next 24 hours.
While The activists claim that the participants agreed to leave as instructed were, they were detained so that their identification documents and photographed passports could be checked. Former Israeli Deputy Attorney General Yehoshua Schoffman was among those detained. He wrote that, “I was just told that I am being detained on suspicion of harvesting olives.” He further insisted: “There was no confrontation whatsoever with settlers or with the security forces” (Arutz Sheva).
JPOST reports that 32 activists were questioned and released with restrictions, while four foreign activists were investigated over alleged online anti-Israel activity, potentially exposing them to immigration proceedings. Another group was released without incident.Arutz Sheva reported that Lander was taken to a police station in Beitar Illit and released under caution; other foreign activists were reportedly transported to Camp Etzion.
In what was no surprise, the incident quickly took on an American political dimension. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared: “Today, Brad Lander, rabbis, and other New Yorkers accompanied Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest. For that, they were detained by the Israeli government. Harvesting olives is not illegal. The occupation is” (Arutz Sheva). Mamdani went on to once again raise the false allegation genocide, something which seems to be the mayor’s favorite catch phrase while having been thoroughly debunked. Mamdani went on to characterize the incident as being as evidence for his campaign of deligitimizing Israel rather than a dispute over agricultural access or security procedures in an area which in which there are serious security concerns amid an yet to be resolved war.
Democratic MK Gilad Kariv criticized the detentions and urged senior IDF commanders to stop using closed military-zone orders against olive-harvesting activities. Rabbis for Human Rights likewise condemned the security forces’ actions. Yet the security context extends well beyond the detained activists. As Arutz Sheva correctly notes, there are a rash of recent incidents in which Palestinian Arab rioters have been seen to attack Jewish farmers, injured Israelis, damaged agricultural land, and used olive-harvesting activity as cover for ongoing confrontations.
In the hours following the incident Lander has stated that he would be co-sponsoring new legislation joining the economic war being waged against Israel.
The timing of these recent events could hardly fail to color the reported efforts of a far-Left NY congressional candidate as he coordinated his visit with the far-left activist group, Rabbis for Human Rights, yet failed to make the proper coordination with the IDF, while allowing further coordination with the cavalcade of anti-Israel antagonists back in New York, whose obsessive fixation with mischaracterizing Israel might make people believe that Israel was actually some subburb of NYC rather than being situated nearly 6,000 miles away on the other side of the Earth. In fact, Sana Ebrahimi Ledene, a new commentator appearing on various news feeds, described it well in stating “[Lander] flew all the way to Israel just to get detained by the IDF for a photo op… and this is the best he could manage. The worst part? Brad is Jewish and still trying to manufacture propaganda against his own people.”
Sources
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/434953
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-912403
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Those New Yorker Rabbis and others, who come to Israel to participate in protest activities against the Jewish state deserve some awkward treatment. If they had come to join the IDF, they would have been welcome. Instead, they come to insist and provoke sanctions for declaring that Israel does not include Judea and Samaria which was intended, in modern times, to be Israeli since the Balfour declaration. Since that is not enough, all areas that belonged to Jews in Judea and Samaria were grabbed by the Jordanians ILLEGALLY in 1948-9 and were restored to Israel in 1967 in the last war Israel fought without international interference. The above fact alone is evidence enough that Judea and Samaria belong to Israel since they were gained in a defensive war against Jordan, Syria and Egypt.
Continually spouting these mis-informations about international law is wrong and they should be charged for libel against the state of Israel if they were so eager to present themselves in Israel, albeit to help the so-called Palestinians. The real Palestinians live in Jordan…