Israel's Foreign Ministry disputes Lander's account of olive harvest trip

Ministry says Lander entered restricted area without required coordination

Israel’s Foreign Ministry disputed Brad Lander’s account of a West Bank olive-harvest trip, saying the New York congressional candidate deliberately entered a restricted security area and took part in an unauthorized activity without the required coordination. Lander said the Israeli military detained him for about three hours and then released him, and he responded to the ministry by saying he and the other volunteers were not in a restricted area, did not pass any checkpoints and were not told coordination was necessary to harvest olives.

The ministry said in a statement: “Lander traveled to a foreign country, deliberately entered a restricted security area and participated in an unauthorized activity without the required coordination.” It added: “Had anyone been injured as a result of his reckless political theater, Lander would undoubtedly have been among the first to demand that Israeli authorities intervene and provide protection.”

On Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry criticized Lander’s volunteer work as being more about creating headlines than harvesting olives, calling it a “stunt” that was “nothing more than a calculated political provocation.”

Lander said on Wednesday that the Israeli military detained him in the occupied West Bank while he volunteered with the Protect the Harvest organization to help with the olive harvest. In a post on X, he wrote: “I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers.” He said they were “simply harvesting olives in a grove” and shared a photo of himself on a bus with the other detainees. “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know,” he added.

Lander later posted that he had been released because he is a congressional candidate, but that others were still detained. In a phone interview with The New York Times, he said he had been detained for about three hours and then released. “I was eventually released and I was told I was being given a warning, that my actions were illegal and wrong, and that we had created a public disturbance and gone where we weren’t supposed to go,” he said in an interview from Beit Jala in the West Bank.

Lander told The Times that he protested his release. “I hadn’t done anything different from anyone else, and I certainly didn’t deserve any special treatment,” he said. “The rabbis and others are still there in detention, and we don’t know — obviously they’re under threat of deportation, and all we were doing was harvesting olives,” he said.

In a statement responding to the ministry, Lander said: “We’re trying to model solidarity & co-existence between Jews and Palestinians, and to call attention to the horrors of the occupation.” He added: “The Israeli government is trying to foment violence between Jews and Palestinians, and to make it impossible for Palestinians to harvest their olive groves, drive on their roads or live in their homes.”

The trip was organized in part by Israelis for Peace and Rabbis for Human Rights. Lander said there were about 60 volunteers in the group, including 40 foreign nationals, who were mostly Americans. He said that on Monday and Tuesday, the group had harvested olives in another area of the West Bank without incident.

The steering committee for Protect the Harvest said the international volunteers were being held at the Etzion military base and the Israeli detainees were held at the Beitar Illit police station, both in the occupied West Bank. Lander said the other volunteers remained in detention and faced the possibility of deportation.

Lander, who is Jewish, is a former New York City comptroller running for Congress in New York’s 10th Congressional District. He was in Israel with the Protect the Harvest organization.

The dispute comes as violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has surged recently, with attacks on international diplomats and journalists. On Monday, Israeli police arrested 10 people accused of attacking two groups of people in the olive harvest. The report said Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is widely seen as illegal under international law, and that Lander’s detention came amid increasing Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, including the E1 development project, which critics warn would further divide Palestinian communities and undermine prospects for a future Palestinian state.

Fellow Democrats came to Lander’s defense. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “Harvesting olives is not illegal. The occupation is.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said Lander’s arrest “is a stark reminder of the abuses Palestinians face on a near daily basis.”