US Politician Brad Lander Among About 80 Volunteers Detained at West Bank Olive Harvest

Israeli forces have detained about 80 volunteers, including US politician Brad Lander, who were helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank. The detainees included US, Israeli and British citizens, several rabbis and a former Israeli deputy attorney general. The incident took place on Wednesday in an olive grove near the village of Nahalin, close to Bethlehem.

Brad Lander, the Democratic congressional nominee from New York, said from a bus taking him to a police station that the military had detained him along with a group of rabbis and volunteers. They were simply harvesting olives near Nahalin, he said, adding that occupation is a crime under international law while harvesting olives is not a crime under any law he knows.

The organising group Protect the Harvest said in a statement that the volunteers were peacefully harvesting on the private land of a Palestinian family who had invited them, when a large contingent of Israeli security forces arrived and detained about 80 people. Why that happened remains unclear, the group said.

Soldiers said the area had been declared a closed military zone. After roughly two hours of peaceful picking, drones began circling overhead, security forces arrived, declared the area a closed military zone, detained the American and Israeli activists and took them to a police station near the settlement of Beitar Illit for questioning.

Two Israeli lawyers who work on such cases described it as the largest mass detention of activists in the occupied West Bank in at least a decade. Rabbi Arik Asherman, a longtime Israeli human rights proponent, called the detentions unprecedented.

In the latest account, Lander was released with a warning while all the others were still being held, Protect the Harvest said. The detainees include Jill Jacobs, the chief executive of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and 11 other American rabbis affiliated with the group. The detainees had been given water but no food. The Israeli military and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lander, who is Jewish, describes himself as a liberal Zionist. He argues that Israel cannot be a true democracy while it denies Palestinians their human rights and freedom. An ally of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, Lander's critical approach to Israel was a key factor in his primary victory against Dan Goldman, a prominent supporter of Israel.

Lander condemns Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, has supported restricting US military aid to Israel and believes Israel's military campaign in Gaza after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks amounts to genocide.

Olive harvesting is an important time for Palestinians both culturally and economically. But access to their fields has become increasingly hard in the face of settler attacks. Several Palestinians in the West Bank said they have been unable to harvest their olive trees since the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, saying it had become too dangerous amid rising settler violence.

Wednesday's detentions came less than a week after American photojournalist Heidi Levine, working for The Washington Post, was assaulted by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. A vicious assault on a US photojournalist and attacks on European diplomats and a French mayor over the weekend drew international condemnation and calls for the Israeli government to crack down on settler militants.

On Monday, Lander made a first post about his journey, writing that the goals were to help protect the olive harvest and to shed light on the reality of the occupation. That day's harvest in their corner was peaceful and successful, he wrote, but violence was never far away.

US politicians have faced similar treatment before; Democratic congressman Ro Khanna of California was also briefly detained by Israeli forces during a trip to the West Bank in July. It remains unclear when the remaining detainees from Wednesday will be released, or whether any of them will face charges.