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October 1, 2010
Don’t expect change
Israelis are indifferent says Ha’aretz journalist.
PAT JOHNSON
Palestinian terror is a coherent response to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, according to Gideon Levy, a prominent Israeli journalist and author, who spoke at the University of British Columbia Sunday.
Even during the Second Intifada, Levy said, Israelis didn’t make the direct connection between the occupation and the terror.
“Israelis didn’t ask themselves what brought the Palestinians to this desperate, desperate action.” Instead, Levy said, Israelis just assumed Palestinians were “born to kill.”
Levy, who writes a weekly column for Ha’aretz chronicling the unpleasantness of Palestinian life under Israeli occupation, was finishing a cross-Canada tour promoting his book The Punishment of Gaza. He spoke to a room of about 300, repeatedly expressing his shame in being an Israeli and condemning his country and compatriots for being blind to injustice.
Days after the 1967 war, as a teenager, Levy traveled for the first time to the West Bank. “I was so deeply moved to be at Rachel’s tomb, to be in Hebron,” he said, adding that he doesn’t recall seeing any Palestinians at the time. “Until today, Israelis don’t see them.”
In the past 10 years, Levy said, Israel has put “an iron curtain between itself and the occupation.” Because life is currently fairly good for Israelis, Levy said the world should not expect change to come from within.
“Why should they bother about peace? About the suffering of the Palestinian people? Who cares?” he asked, referring to Israelis. “A society so indifferent must worry us.”
Jews see themselves as “the only victims, the ultimate victims,” Levy said, which distorts Israelis’ perceptions of their own treatment of Palestinians. Levy claims he came to a realization waiting at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, looking at the garbage and the lack of toilets.
“It’s not about the Palestinians,” he concluded. “It’s about the Israeli soldiers.” By not acknowledging Palestinians as humans who need such things as toilets, Levy said, soldiers are able to view Palestinians as less than human.
For only the first 19 years of Israel’s history there was no occupation, he said, contending that the occupation is part of Israel and that denying the Palestinian people under Israeli authority full civil rights undermines Israel’s claims to be a democracy – as does its discrimination of Israeli Arabs.
Levy denied that Israel’s treatment on the global stage amounts to the delegitimization of its right to exist.
“There is no one serious who puts a question mark about the state of Israel,” he said, adding that the world sees Israel as a fait accompli and to argue otherwise is an effort to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel.
He also minimized the threat posed to Israel by Iran, saying he’s not sure, but it likely doesn’t fund Hamas that much. He offered as evidence the unsophisticated weaponry that Gazans used against Israel during Operation Cast Lead.
Levy called the current peace initiatives an “ongoing farce” and a “masquerade.”
Asked by an audience member if boycotting Israel is a legitimate strategy, Levy said it is.
“What is the siege of Gaza if not a boycott?” he asked. But, he said, the question is: are boycotts effective? A successful boycott could force Israel into a corner, he warned, perhaps making it more intransigent. In an attempt to be hopeful, however, Levy reminded the audience that the Berlin Wall fell, Soviet communism dissipated and the apartheid regime in South Africa transformed to a democracy, so radical change is possible and unpredictable – miracles happen.
Responding to another question from the audience, Levy discounted the allegation that ethnic cleansing is Israel’s goal.
“We have to be careful of exaggerating,” he said. “The situation is serious enough. To exaggerate, we lose credibility. Let’s stick to what is happening already. It’s bad enough.”
Pat Johnson is, among other things, director of programs for Hillel in British Columbia.
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