Gideon Levy in the Independent

[ad hoc]

My favourite journalist, ever. Interviewed in today's Indy. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-gideon-levy-the-most-hated-man-in-israel-or-just-the-most-heroic-2087909.html

[Wyatt Earp]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

That's brilliant.

[pebblethefish]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Never heard of the bloke. Don't know much about Israel. Amazing article though, very educational, and made me want to find out more.

[ursus arctos]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Levy's been doing this for his most of his adult life, and it's great that he's getting some exposure outside of the usual channels.

[Guff Daddy]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Interesting stuff - he's a brave man.

What is the general Israeli reaction to him and his writing? Is he just seen as a "self-hating jew" or is there deep down in Israeli society an unacknowledged understanding that the regime treatment of the Palestinians is unconscionable ?

[ursus arctos]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

A quick Google of "Gideon Levy self-hating" gets 14,000 hits, and I think that it is fair to say that is the default response from Likudniks and those even further right.

That said, the fact that he still writes regularly for Ha'aretz is strong evidence that he has not been completely marginalised.

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

I don't think you can talk about "Israeli society" - there are an enormous number of different societies, depending on a whole lot of things, class and previous political formation, where their parents came from, how long their family has been there- and class position on arrival.

The German refugees -like Gideon Levy's parents and those who came from the West and Central Europe,who came before or after the second world war- and had been used to some kind of civil rights before emigrating tended to think differently from those who came from Poland and Ukraine. The British were seen as the enemy. and there was a strong socialist element and some people believed in the possibility of a utopia where no minorities were to be treated as the Jews had been treated. The ultimate political reality of course was very different.

For a portrait of the time read Amos Oz's magnificent
A Tale of Love and Darkness

Immigrants from Yemen, Iran and Iraq, had a different political approach, and Russian immigrants -a whole chapter in themselves -brought a different set of expectations and behaviours.

The more recent settlers from the US tend to be both very religious ,with a different narrative involved and a different relationship with Israel, with Jewishness, with the Occupied Territories (which they see as uncomplicatedly part of Greater Israel) and the Palestinians- who they see as inferior - and in the way. There is a large section of Israeli society who simply think "they" deserve everything they get.

I think for a lot of people in Israel the bus bombings of the second intifada changed things, fundamentally. Bombing campaigns - as the Second world war shows, tend to unite rather than demoralise a population. The murder of Rabin also showed how utterly divided Israel was.

There's another interesting piece this time in the Guardian about how much cheaper property is in the Occupied Territories and how it's subsidised.

Finally interesting if long article in the New Yorker about David Grossman, a novelist whose son was killed in the Israeli Army.

[ad hoc]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Nefertiti2 wrote:

I think for a lot of people in Israel the bus bombings of the second intifada changed things, fundamentally.

It's always the fault of the Palestinians, as Levy says. Up until that point peace was clearly just around the corner.

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

I said nothing about fault. I was attempting to answer a question:

is there deep down in Israeli society an unacknowledged understanding that the regime treatment of the Palestinians is unconscionable?

My impression is that after the second intifada there was a fundamental change in the answer amongst many Israelis who might see themselves on other issues as progressive, who had a bad feeling about the ways the Palestinians were treated and who might previously have believed in a negotiated settlement involving withdrawal from the Occupied Territories. .

Levy says on this

Look at the terror that happened in 2002 and 2003: life in Israel was really horrifying, the exploding buses, the suicide-bombers. But no Israeli made the connection between the occupation and the terror. For them, the terror was just the ‘proof’ that the Palestinians are monsters, that they were born to kill, that they are not human beings and that’s it. And if you just dare to make the connection, people will tell you ‘you justify terror ’ and you are a traitor.

I think that more people came to think that during and after the bombings than did so before.The collapse of Peace Now and the Labour Party is only one manifestation of this. You probably know more about it than I do, though.

Whether the suicide bombings were tactically or strategically productive is another debate, probably for another place.

[ad hoc]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Sorry if I implied it was your opinion Nef.

I have grown totally weary of Israeli public opinion being of any relevance though. It seems like if there are suicide bombings then Israeli public opinion becomes more racist, and if there aren't suicide bombings Israeli public opinion becomes more racist. Nothing that has happened so far has seemingly made any difference. Anyone who supports the settlers, the occupation, and the status quo is a racist cunt. And as the number of racist cunts in Israel grows by the day, I find myself less and less interested in what Israeli public opinion has to say.

Whether the suicide bombings were tactically or strategically productive is another debate, probably for another place.

I think the entire question is phrased wrongly, as it assumes that suicide bombings were some kind of planned tactic from kind of central Palestinian national command. Suicide bombings were a moral "mistake", but I can fully understand how years of total intransigence and brutality from Israel drove people to do such terrible things. This is not to justify them at all.

But honestly, I reckon we could say without much fear of being wrong that everything that palestinians have tried - negotiation, ceasefires, rockets, bombs, passivity, uprising, every fucking thing has been a mistake in the sense that none of it has made the slightest fucking difference

(I'm a bit angry this morning having seen those cunts in the settlements cheering and pouring more concrete as Israel once again decides that peace and justice are not interesting options)

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

None taken-I only get offended by your opinions on Arsenal.

I recently spent some time with some Israelis at an occasion I attended over the summer- I might write it up sometime-suffice it to say that it was a place where I might be deemed to think as they did.

There was a range of ages from almost a hunderd to much younger - and I was really astonished by the way that some (not all) people spoke. I suspect that at least one was living in the occupied territories and one guy in his mid seventies I guess had had no problem working in Germany but spoke about the Palestinians as inferior beings- I found it really shocking.

Don't know whether People have heard about the Jewish Boat to Gaza -it's getting very little coverage in the media but I think it's worth discussing supporting and telling other people about.

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Gideon's latest article- on the loyalty oath now required by "non-Jewish new citizens of Israel"

[ad hoc]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Another good article on the "apartheid oath" by Jonathan Cook, who is consistently excellent: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11573.shtml

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

A fascinating David Remnick New Yorker feature on Haaretz

[Incandenza]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

It's too bad that the photo of Gideon Levy and Amira Hass in the Haaretz newsroom didn't make it onto the web version.

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

He's speaking in London tonight, at the LSE I'll try and make it, I think.

[Nefertiti2]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Judith Butler

[Hobgoblin]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

"In fact in politics, sometimes the thing that will never happen actually starts to happen. And there have to be people who hold out for that, and who accept that they are idealists and that they are operating on principle as opposed to realpolitik. If there were no such ideals then our entire political sensibility would be corrupted by this process."

Magnificent.

[ad hoc]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/is-gideon-levy-the-most-hated-man-in-israel-or-just-the-most-heroic-2087909.html

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

From the Levy interview:

“My biggest struggle,” he says, “is to rehumanize the Palestinians. There’s a whole machinery of brainwashing in Israel which really accompanies each of us from early childhood, and I’m a product of this machinery as much as anyone else. [We are taught] a few narratives that it’s very hard to break. That we Israelis are the ultimate and only victims. That the Palestinians are born to kill, and their hatred is irrational. That the Palestinians are not human beings like us… So you get a society without any moral doubts, without any questions marks, with hardly public debate. To raise your voice against all this is very hard.”

"The only permanent reality in the whole constellation was the presence of Arabs in Palestine, a reality no decision could alter — except perhaps the decision of a totalitarian state, implemented by its particular brand of ruthless force."

- Hannah Arendt, To Save The Jewish Homeland, 1948

[G-Man]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Al Jazeera documentary on Gideon Levy. My wife caught it and said it was excellent. I'm looking forward to watching it.

[Borracho]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

I just saw the byline on that Independent article and thought: "Jesus christ, have they actually re-hired him?" Then I saw the date.

[ursus arctos]

Gideon Levy in the Independent

Exactly my reaction and process.