Two weeks before his own congressional election in the United States, Brad Lander flew to Judea, joined an olive harvest that skipped Israel’s security rules, and got himself detained. Within hours he was on a press call with New York reporters, pledging to sanction Israelis.
Lander is the Democratic nominee for Congress in New York’s 10th District and a former New York City comptroller. He was one of about 90 activists from Rabbis for Human Rights and the “Protect the Harvest” coalition whom Israeli soldiers and police detained on Wednesday, October 21. The group was picking olives for a landowner from the Arab village of Nahalin, in groves right next to the Jewish city of Beitar Illit in Gush Etzion. About two hours into the harvest, forces declared a closed military zone and took the group in for ID checks.
Lander posted on X while he was still in custody: “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. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”
He walked out about three hours later with a warning, and most of the others went home the same day. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani picked up the story anyway: “Harvesting olives is not illegal. The occupation is.” Mamdani also accused Israel of “genocide.”
Harvests next to Israeli communities must be coordinated with the IDF in advance, and this one wasn’t. The IDF gave the landowner contact details so he can schedule his harvest for another day, with soldiers there to protect it.
The system works. The IDF says about 100 coordinated harvests have taken place this season, bringing in dozens of tons of olives with Israeli security present and no unusual incidents. Lander’s group chose to skip it. The Nahalin landowner was never barred from his trees. All he has to do is call.
The IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson made the stakes clear: the army will “not allow inciting elements to exploit civil activity to provoke violence or create disturbances. The olive harvest season is an agricultural activity; it must not be transformed into a period of violence and conflict.”
Israeli officials saw this coming before the harvest season began. The Yesha Council, which represents the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria, warned Defense Minister Israel Katz that activists were planning provocations. It named Protect the Harvest, the coalition Lander joined, as one of the groups organizing them. Katz ordered officials to pursue orders barring activists who threaten public order from the area.
Lander’s group also included anti-Israel activists. Israel Police flagged four foreign members for anti-Israel activity online and for supporting organizations opposed to Israel, and sent them to deportation hearings. Police also confirmed that no one was harmed during the detentions.
Lander made no secret of why he came. The day before his detention, he posted a video announcing that the trip’s goals included shedding “a light on the reality of the occupation.” After his release, he told reporters he would back the Stop the Settlements Act, a bill to sanction Israelis in Judea and Samaria and ban imports of goods made there: “I will certainly be signing on to Representative Castro’s bill when I get to Congress.” He plans to be back in New York on Saturday to vote early.
In the same post announcing his release, Lander called his detention part of “very clearly state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.” Ethnic cleansing means forcibly removing a people from their land. No one was hurt. No one faced criminal charges. No farmer lost his trees. The landowner can pick his olives under Israeli protection as soon as he picks up the phone.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry put it plainly: “This was not about harvesting olives. It was about harvesting headlines. Brad Lander came looking for a confrontation. Now he is pretending to be its victim.”
Lander didn’t come to help a farmer. He came to smear Israel and score political points with his voters in New York.
Sources
https://x.com/bradlander/status/2112853707784118403, https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/434953, https://www.amny.com/politics/brad-lander-israeli-detention-mamdani/, https://x.com/NYCMayor/status/2112917704713654588, https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-912403, https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/defense/artc-katz-seeks-exclusion-orders-against-activists-ahead-of-west-bank-olive-harvest, https://x.com/bradlander/status/2112900551646065073, https://x.com/IsraelMFA/status/2112932375105548489
