Leaked Internal Document Shows What Brad Lander Was Really Up to in Israel

An internal document from the group that organized Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander’s trip to the West Bank describes Israel as "genocidal" and engaged in "ethnic cleansing" and says the trip’s goal is to build support for "international intervention" against Israel.

The document, labeled "INTERNAL DOCUMENT: DO NOT SHARE OR CIRCULATE," is a set of talking points from Protect the Harvest, which recruits foreigners to help make Israel look bad as part of its smear campaign.

Lander did his part, posting to social media that he had been "detained" by the Israel Defense Forces.

Lander is the Democratic nominee for a New York City congressional district that includes parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. The district is currently represented by Dan Goldman. Lander, a former New York City comptroller who ran unsuccessfully for mayor and then endorsed Zohran Mamdani, defeated Goldman in a Democratic primary in a race whose entire supposed justification was that Goldman was not anti-Israel enough.

Israel’s foreign ministry denounced Lander’s move as "reckless political theater."

"Lander traveled to a foreign country, deliberately entered a restricted security area, and participated in an unauthorized activity without the required coordination," the foreign ministry said. "What makes this stunt even more outrageous is that his own team contacted Israeli representatives in the United States ahead of his visit and was explicitly informed that proper coordination with the relevant authorities was required. He chose to ignore those instructions."

The foreign ministry said the real purpose of the trip wasn’t harvesting olives. "This was not about harvesting olives. It was about harvesting headlines," the ministry said.

A former U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said, "Because these olive harvests recently have been the sites of local violence (often instigated by foreign left-wing activists), Israel closes off the area to keep the peace. You numbskulls travel halfway across the world to pick the olives, make performative videos and show solidarity with terrorists, and the IDF tells you to sit this one out. Maybe, just maybe, the IDF is protecting you from mayhem and embarrassment."

Friedman added, in a post directed directly to Lander: "The sad thing is that Arabs and Israelis actually could get along fine if people like you didn’t show up and agitate (and then leave right after the photo op). You are doing nothing to help anyone other than yourself and your political profile among woke New Yorkers."

The Israeli military explained, "Harvesting in this area requires a request to be submitted to the relevant authorities in advance of the start of the olive harvest season. This coordination is necessary to ensure the security of the area and maintain public order. … Due to the security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community, IDF soldiers, Border Police forces in Judea and Samaria, and officers from the Judea and Samaria District Police arrived at the scene and detained those present."

The military statement went on, "It should be emphasized that authorized olive harvests have taken place and continue to take place. To date, approximately 100 coordinated harvests have been conducted across Judea and Samaria, yielding many dozens of tons of produce, with security provided and coordination by the security forces, without any unusual incidents. In areas designated for coordinated harvesting, only harvesters will be permitted to enter, solely for the purpose of harvesting."

The "talking points" obtained by the Washington Free Beacon make totally clear that the group Lander was with has an extreme political agenda that includes demonizing Israel and mobilizing international opposition against it. The three-page document includes the phrase "ethnic cleansing" twelve times and throws in the "genocidal" blood libel, too. "Building on the Israeli military’s genocidal assault on Gaza, ethnic cleansing has been largely normalized in Israeli-Jewish society and enjoys widespread public opinion support amongst Israeli Jews. Ethnic cleansing is not an idle threat," the document claims, inaccurately. "By bringing hundreds of internationals to the ground, we are helping grow the emerging consensus that international intervention is necessary to stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the West Bank."

What sort of "international intervention"—a Turkish invasion? French tanks rolling in reverse gear away from Paris toward Israeli positions? Iranian missiles? Hamas rape gangs?—is left mostly unspecified. There are vague references to "government and civil society initiatives that pressure the Israeli government." That could mean anything from an arms embargo on Israel to a boycott. Both are backed by Lander’s pal Mayor Mamdani.

As for "ethnic cleansing," the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics claims 3.46 million Palestinians living in the West Bank in 2026, up from 2.8 million in 2016, 2.3 million in 2006, and 1.8 million in 1997. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics is notorious for its unreliable and inflated numbers, but the population figures are not consistent with an "ethnic cleansing" campaign. That’s not to say that there isn’t criminal violence in the West Bank, but there’s criminal violence in Lander’s New York City, too.

Lander’s social media campaign pushed "sanctions" that would hit companies providing banking services and building materials to Jerusalem suburbs, which is to say, a lot of totally mainstream and major Israeli firms. Lander said he was released from custody with a "warning." Look for him soon as an anonymous source in a future Nick Kristof fantasy column about his conditions under detention.

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