Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) criticized what he said was a “publicity stunt” from his Democratic House colleague Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), after the latter said that he was detained by armed “settlers” during a recent trip to Judea and Samaria.
Gottheimer, who is Jewish, has not been shy about calling out members of his own party on issues like antisemitism and Zionism. He did it again going after Khanna, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, who has said that Israel is guilty of “genocide.”
“You should be able to bring these issues to the front, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican,” Gottheimer told JNS.
“This was just an opportunistic move and then not really sincere,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot, including from high-level sources, that what the congressman is claiming happened isn’t what happened.”
Khanna said that armed “settlers” detained him and his party on their visit and that when the Israeli military showed up, it made matters worse.
“We were detained for about 20 minutes, fearful of our lives,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Then the IDF comes, four soldiers. They tell our translator that they’re on the side of the settlers,” Khanna told NBC. “They further detain us and block us in. We had to call the American embassy.”
Reports differed on whether Khanna had entered a closed military zone.
Gottheimer said that Khanna didn’t coordinate his visit with the Israeli government and brought along a news crew.
“If you just show up that way, I just have a feeling that he understood what the outcome might be, and it was just for opportunistic purposes,” Gottheimer told JNS.
Yechiel Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, stated that Khanna should have worked with the Israeli government to make sure the trip ran smoothly, rather than bring along J Street, which supports a two-state solution and whose founder and president has said that he is convinced that Israel will be found to be guilty of genocide.
“We reached out to him when we heard he was going to Israel,” Leiter said, of Khanna, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“As all congressmen do, they coordinate their trip with the Israeli government. We suggested he visit with survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre, that he visit the borders, so he understands the issues that we have on our borders and so on,” the Israeli envoy said. “He ignored that.”
Gotheimer questioned Khanna’s claim that armed settlers detained his party.
“Let’s be honest, this was a publicity stunt,” Gotheimer stated. “Channels exist to protect elected officials, and Khanna intentionally entered a restricted, unstable area without coordinating to provoke a response.”
“What’s appalling is that Ro ignored requests to meet Oct. 7 survivors and hostages, or to visit sites of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks,” the New Jersey Democrat stated. “Instead, riding the anti-Zionist wave, he used the trip as a presidential campaign cameo.”
Former congresswoman Kathy Manning was also critical of what she said is a visit that had “all the hallmarks of a political stunt rather than a genuine effort to understand this complex conflict.”
“If your goal is to learn, you don’t seek out only one perspective,” stated Manning, chair of Democratic Majority for Israel. “It is extremely disappointing that Congressman Khanna didn’t take the time on this trip to meet with Israelis living along the northern border who have endured relentless attacks from Hezbollah.”
“Nor did he meet with the victims and families whose lives were forever changed by Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks,” she stated.
Before Graham Platner withdrew from the Maine Senate race after allegations of rape, Gottheimer called for the Democrat, who had a tattoo with a Nazi symbol, to drop out. In 2019, Gottheimer pushed the House to condemn Jew-hatred in response to comments by a fellow House Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
“It’s not always the most popular thing but I think in the end, the people I represent back in Jersey, know that I call balls and strikes, and they also know if I say I’m going to do something, I’m gonna do it,” Gottheimer told JNS.
Khanna refused to back down.
“What happened to me in the West Bank was an outrage,” he stated. “But it is nothing compared to what Palestinians face every day. It is time to share their stories that American politics have silenced and ignored.”
