I was going to name this article a more serious-sounding "The situation in Israel according to Gideon Levy", but then realized that I'd already written <a href="{app}view_article.php?id=4848">Amira Hass is on a tear</a> and <a href="{app}view_article.php?id=4849">Norman Finkelstein is on a tear</a>, so I put this one in the series. Starting at 24:00, the Gideon Levy interview is just 100% gold. Katie and Aaron ask good questions, but it's really more of a lecture on Israel, as she is in 2023. <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frQxvUEpk-U" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/frQxvUEpk-U" source="YouTube" width="560px" author="Useful Idiots: Katie Halper & Aaron Maté" caption="Extended episode: Israel’s Nazi Proposals w/ Gideon Levy"> <pre> 00:00 Intro 01:43 The Four Food Groups of News 19:52 An Ode to Henry Kissinger 24:00 Gideon Levy interview 28:05 How Israeli's live with occupation 35:27 Can the truce hold? 45:47 Is there any hope for peace? 56:15 What do young Israelis think? </pre> The first 24 minutes are a bit uneven. I really like Aaron Maté and Katie Halper. I think they're intelligent, witty, and have their ethics in the right place. But they drew several conclusions in the first 20 minutes that were absolutely the correct ones, but justified them with completely specious reasoning. It's the kind of thing that makes you so assailable. You don't lock down your point because you made it in a way that someone who's looking to disagree with you is going to be able to use to continue the discussion long after it should have been shut down. I think that's my problem with <a href="{app}view_article.php?id=4890">Mo Gawdat</a> as well---his interactions have encouraged him to be lazy in his justifications for what I agree are the correct sentiments. This means I can't really use anything he says as ammunition in my own arguments. It's a pity. Anyway... This is a brilliant lecture by Gideon Levy. Katie and Aaron ask good questions, but from 24:00 onwards, it's the Gideon Levy show. It's just an incredible interview. I copy/pasted so much out of the transcript because nearly every word out of Mr. Levy's mouth was interesting and pertinent and well-phrased. I'm glad he, too, noticed what great questions both Katie and Aaron asked. If you can make your friends watch one 80-minute video about Israel, this is the one. As for the transcript? It's OK, but needs a lot of cleanup to make it truly legible. It has no punctuation, has odd capitalization, and the poor thing just can't bring itself to write the word "apartheid". I'm not going to read anything into that. I've cleaned up the transcription considerably, but I've not corrected any of Levy's unique prepositions or formulations because I'm transcribing his speech, not translating it to SWE (Standard Written English). At <b>28::30</b>, he says, <bq><b>Look: you cannot maintain such an occupation---such a brutal reality---in your backyard without believing in some kind of of lies that you invent to yourself in order to make it easier for you.</b> Because, finally, we are all human beings with emotions. And I don't think that a normal human being can live in peace with such a brutal dictatorship in its backyard. Even if you don't see it, but you know it's there, in your backyard, just half an hour away from your home. So, you have to live in denial. Otherwise, you cannot stand it. So, first of all, Israel covered itself---protected itself---with all kind of walls of denial. <b>Above all, the media which doesn't show anything right now, anything from Gaza. You can hardly see Gaza on Israeli TV or [in] Israeli newspapers, and you can hardly see the occupation in Israeli mainstream media.</b> But that's not enough okay? So, you don't see anything and you don't want to know anything and all those agency helps you not to know. That's not enough. You have to have also some kind of ideology, some kind of explanation, some kind of justification. So, the first thing you mentioned was really being the chosen people. We got it with the milk of our mothers. <b>We were told from childhood that---even though most of us are secular or we think we are secular---that that we are the chosen people. And the examples, the expressions, are endless.</b> Let's take the international law. The international law was born after the Holocaust, after the World War II. And Israel, obviously, supports the international law. It's something very important. It should be implemented everywhere---except of one place: Israel. For Israel, it shouldn't be implemented. Why? Because we are a special case. You cannot deal us with the same tools that you deal Syria, Iraq, Russia---all kind of occupying regimes. No. We are not one of them. We are something special. And you see it again and again. You can also not tell us what to do because we know better. <b>If you met Israelis, you always feel this arrogance. We know better. Why? Because we <i>are better</i>.</b> Because what do you know folks? I mean who? Americans, Germans, French, Swedes---who are you to tell us? Secondly, is obviously this notion of victimization. As the late Golda Meir phrased it---in a wonderful way---after the Holocaust: 'the Jews have the right to do whatever they want.' In other words, we are the ultimate victims of history. But not only the ultimate victims. We are the only victims. Try to tell an Israeli that there were some other holocausts. He will be deeply offended. You cannot call the Armenian Holocaust the Holocaust because Holocaust is only ours and we are the biggest victims. Being such victims enable us to do whatever we want and nobody can stop us. <b>Katie:</b> [...] and the third one is the dehumanization of Palestinians. Right. And that's the most obvious one. Because you cannot colonize and you cannot brutally govern another people with the belief that they are equal human beings to you. Because then, who gave you this right to treat them like---I don't even want to say animals, because animals, [Katie:] they're treated better, [Gideon:] absolutely---who gave you the right? <b>So the only way to live with it in peace, is to keep on telling yourself that they are not human beings like us.</b> The Palestinians don't love their children. Therefore, they are not---it's not a big deal for them to see them dying. They were born to kill. They have nothing in their mind except of pushing the Jews to the ocean. That's their nature. They are barbarians. I mean, that's their nature. It's not that it's for a certain purpose. That's them and they are not like us. We are human. We are human beings. And that's the way to treat them because then they---there's no question of human rights, if they're not human---so why do they deserve human rights? You see it, by the way, in any occupation. I mean, obviously the Germans dehumanized the Jews. But, also, in many other cases, you cannot maintain an occupation without dehumanizing the other. [...] <b>In Africa look how they treated the colonies in Africa---total dehumanization. Because otherwise, how can you stand it and explain it to yourself?</b></bq> As an American, this rings true of how America ticks, as well. The U.S. also constantly speaks of itself as "exceptional". It also does not recognize any higher authority than itself. It also dehumanizes every last one of its occupied peoples---Afghans, Iraqis, the list goes on. They dehumanize every last immigrant. Americans also think they're better than everyone because they absolutely believe the story of exceptionalism. This brainwashing works so well that they can visit foreign countries that are <i>obviously</i> running things better than in the U.S. and they will <i>feel sorry</i> for those benighted peoples because they don't have the same TV programs, or they can't drive everywhere they want to---they have to take trains! Or busses!---their food isn't the same. The level of brainwashing is incredible. At <b>34:00</b>, he says, <bq><b>Now Israel is 24 hours, 7 days a week only in news programs. There are no other programs</b>, so it's an ongoing broadcast, which shows almost only either the agony of the families of the hostages or the hostages coming back or the soldiers in Gaza or telling us about the achievements in Gaza. Now there is the pause, so you see less from Gaza. But only the army. You will see once in a while some very small piece of one [or] two minutes showing some ruins in Gaza, just you know to---as a lip service: 'here we showed Gaza.' But it's not really showing Gaza. We know very well that everything is also about framing. And this is always framed as something marginal, as something that we have to show you, but let's get back to business. <b>The bomb that fall on a house in the South and scratched the terrace---that's the story of the day.</b> By all means, not 5,000 children who were killed in Gaza. This is not in our agenda. So when it is being done systematically---that's brainwashing.</bq> This also checks out in comparing with the States. The U.S. kids itself that it has two silos, but to a sane person, they look pretty much the same. They only disagree on relatively minor issues. I don't mean that abortion rights is <i>absolutely minor</i> but that it's <i>minor</i> when compared to a $1T-per-year military that stamps its bootprint on the world, over and over. At <b>36:00</b>, he says, <bq>The national sentiment right now---and polls show it---is in favor of continuing the war. And in a very clear majority. Israelis, <b>after the 7th of October, feel that they cannot get back to normality before punishing Gaza and punishing Hamas and smashing Hamas</b>---crashing Hamas. That's almost common in Israeli discourse, that this should happen.</bq> At around <b>44:00</b>, he talks about how the Kibbutzim were mostly old socialists, peace activists, who now feel betrayed by the Palestinians. The Kibbutzim are lumping Palestinians and the most militant Hamas all together, but this was inevitable. They, too, are going to succumb to some of the brainwashing. The Kibbutzim feel that they're helping someone, and then that someone bites the hand that feeds. This is powerful. Levy says that the core of the left, the peace movement, is breaking up and moving to the right now, as well. He says that this is not surprising, but that it's one of the most lamentable side-effects of the attack and counterattack---there will be even less political air to breathe for anyone pushing for a reconciliation or an equitable and just one-state solution. After that, he talks about the shame Israel feels about having been taking by surprise by a few hundred people on motorcycles. This shame and embarrassment drives the intensity of the counterattack, as well. At <b>46:30</b>, Katie asks if there is any hope for a one-state solution---with equal rights, because there already is a one-state solution, just an apartheid one. He says, <iq>not for the foreseeable future.</iq> He continues, <bq><b>Israelis will not wake up one morning and say, 'oh, this occupation, this apartheid, we don't like it so much. Let's put an end to it. This will never happen happen.</b> It will only happen when Israelis will pay for it, will be punished for it. And this is not going to happen because the International community basically supports the occupation. The United States supports the occupation, actively, passively [...]</bq> Katie asks how the U.S. could end the occupation. Levy responds that, <bq><b>What is easier than this? Israel depends so much on the United States. The aid is so generous---more than any country in the world.</b> God knows why, but Israel gets more than any other country in the world and, believe me, Israel is not the poorest country or the country that deserves...but that's the choice of the United States and that's your own choice. You have to decide to whom, but <b>why not to condition? It was never conditioned. This is so outrageous.</b> [...] Why not, for example, condition the aid by at least stopping building settlements? <b>You want our aid? You have to stop this criminal project. What is so complicated in this?</b> No American president, no administration, went for it.</bq> At <b>51:00</b>, he says, <bq>I guess you know that in Israel there are not many political discussions anymore. <b>In the last decades, nobody speaks about the long future. [...] Everybody's only in the present.</b> Ask an Israeli, 'Where do you want to go? Where are you aiming? Where is your state aiming? What is the end game? What is your goal? What will be here in 20 years time? In 30 years time? [...] What do you want to happen here?' <b>You will not get an answer, except [from] the very right extremist, who will tell you, very clearly to expel the Palestinians from here, and then we'll have a real Jewish State between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.</b> That's our plan---we are aiming there. But that's, until now, a minority. All the rest have no plan and and there is no debate. There is no debate.</bq> At <b>52:00</b>, he says, <bq>[...] <b>you come and see campaigns to the elections. The occupation is not present at all. Election after election, people speak about the most minor and stupid issues---and the occupation is not on the table at all.</b> Not in favor, not against---doesn't exist.</bq> <bq>[...] don't forget that I've not been in Gaza for the last 15 years because <b>Israel doesn't let any Israeli journalist to go to Gaza.</b> So most of the contacts are also much weaker now because it's 15 years that I've not seen none of my friends there.</bq> <bq><b>What we see here, that generation after generation, they become more ignorant about the conflict. They know nothing. They really know nothing.</b> You will be surprised. I can ensure you, any average American student in University or in college---for sure. any European---knows much more about the conflict than an average Israeli. We live in denial. <b>And therefore, we don't want to know anything. Not only about life in Gaza today---about the whole history. the context. The context is not present.</b> [...] I'm amazed, again and again, how little---there are obviously very knowledgeable young people in Israel, yeah---but the majority, they know nothing. And <b>they don't want to know nothing. And they hate the Arabs like hell.</b></bq> This checks out with Americans as well. Just the most shocking, willful ignorance about their own recent history. They just forgive themselves of their own crimes by allowing their propaganda to quickly and efficiently erase any of their home country's crimes from their memories. At <b>01:15:00</b>, <bq>I say it for many years I never made a poll and it's not systematic, but I can tell you that many more Palestinians that I met want to live together with the Jews---in equality, in justice---but are ready to live with the Jews. <b>Most of the Israelis that I know---including the leftists---wants separation.</b> We are here. They are there. So that's, first of all, a difference in their sentiments. Obviously there is a bigger majority for the one-state solution among the Palestinians rather than among the Israelis, who, for them it's unacceptable at all.</bq> I think the really important thing to remember is that <i>there already is a one-state solution</i> right now. It is an apartheid one. There is only one state: Israel. There are a lot of people living in Israel who have <i>different</i> rights from the ruling class. This is not unlike other countries, like Switzerland, where over 30% of the resident population cannot vote because they do not have Swiss citizenship. Of course, the path to citizenship, if not easy, is, at least in principle, possible. I just wanted to point out that most countries exist somewhere on this spectrum, from 100% perfect equality to outright apartheid. Israel is quite far out on one extreme. Levy continues, <bq>Now, what any American or Israeli should know is that nothing---but nothing---in our lives---in your lives---looks the same like someone in your same age, same social-economical background in the West Bank. And we are not speaking about the cage of Gaza. We are speaking about the West Bank and we are not speaking about times of war, but the routine. The routine of the occupation is the most cruel one because, at any given moment, the army can penetrate to your home---mainly at night---with dogs, wake the whole house up, make a search without any legal supervision---obviously. <b>At any moment, the army is---the raids are every night, everywhere. At any given moment, you can be arrested with reason. without reason.</b> At any given moment, your parents can be humiliated in front of you and children can be beaten in front of you. This can happen in any moment and. above all. <b>Your life is so cheap and you can be so easily shot at any circumstance.</b> You don't have to do much in order to be shot.</bq> I'm thinking that there are certain echelons of U.S. society who can absolutely understand this feeling. Mr. Levy should read more news about U.S. policing. I'm sure it's worse in the West Bank, but man does this situation rhyme with the one facing the poor and minority populations in the U.S. <bq>[...] much worse than this, is <b>the lack of dignity. You know that any 18-year-old soldier can do with you whatever he wants. And the same for an armed settler.</b> He can do to you whatever he wants and nothing will happen to him. [...] You are totally helpless. You have no one to come to save you. No, I mean everyone in every other society in the world can call a police, can call an ambulance, can call soldiers. army. someone to come and guard you, to protect you.</bq> I understand that he knows his own country the best, but Israel absolutely does not have a lock on police repression of minorities. Or on citizen lynchings of minorities. I'm quite sure that people all over Europe and the U.S. would definitely be able to tell of similar experiences. Do you think people are setting the <i>banlieues</i> in Paris on fire for fun? Does he not read any news from the U.S. about police brutality? Maybe he should read <a href="{app}/view_article.php?id=3429">The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (2012)</a>. <bq>Life has no perspectives for anything---and <b>everything we say here is so much better in the West Bank than in Gaza.</b></bq> Katie's final question was about why a two-state solution is no longer feasible. Levy answered, <bq><b>In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there are over 700,000 Jewish settlers. Part of them are armed, all of them are represented in Israeli politics as the strongest political pressure group.</b> They have ministers. They have members of parliament They have high officers in the army, in the media, everywhere. They are a very well-organized, very powerful group in Israeli society. <b>There is no reality in which anyone will be able to evacuate them from their settlements. 700,000 people you cannot evacuate. If you don't evacuate them, there is no viable Palestinian State.</b> Anyone who had visited the West Bank understands that there is no room---no room! You cannot drive in the West Bank more than 10 minutes without seeing another settlement. What kind of Palestinian state will it be when in every corner there there is an armed militant violent outpost. Who is going to to challenge it? And how will it be a Palestinian state with 700,000 settlers?</bq> At the very end, he addressed the de-facto one-state solution, summarized better than I'd done above. <bq>[...] <b>what is lasting already for the last 55 years is a one-state [solution]. We are all living in one state.</b> A refugee in Jenin. a shepherd in Hebron, and me in Tel Aviv, we live under the same regime, under the same authority: the government and the military of Israel. He is more under the military. I more under the government. But, finally, we are living in the same state. He's using the same currency that I use. He is registered with the ministry of interior exactly like I do. <b>He is living under Israel, like me, under the state of Israel.</b> So the one state is here. The only problem is its regime and its regime is anything but democracy. I will not get into it, because it's late, but <b>it looks like apartheid, it behaves like apartheid, it is apartheid.</b> I don't know anyone who went to the West Bank, saw a settlement---the Jewish settlement---on one side, a Palestinian village next by. <b>The Jews have all the rights in the world. The Palestinian next by have no rights whatsoever</b> and we'll be able to call it any other name but apartheid.</bq> I've been trying to figure out who he looks like. He's an Israeli Robert de Niro. <img src="{att_link}gideon-levy.jpeg" href="{att_link}gideon-levy.jpeg" align="none" scale="50%">