Brad Lander got his wish: IDF detention and undeserved attention

As anyone who has ever harvested olives will tell you, the activity is a fun fall tradition.It requires a few people with functioning arms, sometimes a rake to reach the tallest branches, and a blanket or tarp to catch the fruit when it falls.It does not require reporters, activists or Brad Lander.And yet, there he was, the lefty House nominee in New York’s 10th Congressional District, wearing a Knicks hat and a big-boy expression, sharing on social media that he’s been detained by the IDF after attempting to assist in a Palestinian olive harvest in Judea and Samaria.“The occupation is a crime under international law,” Lander opined — international law, of course, being precisely the sort of stuff for which we turn to New York City’s former comptroller.“Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”Even without challenging Lander’s baseless ululations about “the occupation,” it’s easy enough to dismiss his sermonizing about agricultural practices 5,700 miles from the district he aspires to represent.Search for “olive harvest” in Arabic, and it won’t be too hard to find videos, like the one released earlier this week by Hamas-affiliated media, showing hundreds of young terrorists flocking to the fields, carrying the sort of tools — knives, guns, throwing slings loaded with rocks — that have nothing to do with cultivating Kalamatas or Manzanillas.Their method is simple: Use the harvest as an excuse to riot; attack Jewish farmers on nearby lands; and then, when the Jews retaliate, make sure you have a throng of sympathetic international observers nearby to document the crimes of Israel’s Very Violent Settlers.If you’re lucky, some hot-headed 23-year-old Israeli may even respond with excessive force, in which case you can run to the nearest camera and cry again about the unspeakable cruelty of those evil Jews.It’s a coordinated campaign, pitting Palestinian terrorists, European NGOs and American idiots like Lander agains...