A VOICE CRIES OUT IN THE WILDERNESS: Meeting the great Gideon Levy
One of the great privileges of my last trip to Palestine was getting to meet Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist who lives in Tel Aviv, and probably the most high profile Israeli journalist who is willing to tell the truth about Israel and Palestine. Our group met with him for about an hour, as we passed through Tel Aviv on our way to the Galilee region.
Gideon Levy writes for Haaretz, a leading left-leaning newspaper in Israel. Though it leans left, Levy is easily the most outspoken writer on its staff when it comes to his scathing criticism of Israel and his defense of the Palestinian people. Levy was born and raised in Tel Aviv, his parents came to Israel in 1939 as refugees. In the 1990’s his reporting took him to the West Bank, and his encounters there changed him. His so-called ‘radical’ views came from what he saw there and the people that he met. A similar transformation came through his reporting from Gaza. The more time he spent there as a reporter, the more he interacted with the people there, the more he realized that the information he had been given about Palestinians in Gaza was false. He described the people of Gaza as some of the warmest, funniest, most generous people he has ever met.
As Levy talked about Palestinians in Gaza, he mentioned his driver there, who was a driver for many international journalists, back when they were still allowed to enter Gaza (it’s been 18 years since Israeli journalists have been allowed to enter Gaza). Levy had been in recent contact with him, and said that he was diabetic and recently suffered a stroke. When we spoke with Levy in early May, his former driver was down to his last few drops of insulin, and had no way of getting more. One wonders if the man is still alive.
Levy described how things have gotten demonstrably worse when it comes to Israeli views on Gaza since October 7. He said that most Israelis really do believe that there are no innocent people in Gaza, and that even babies are culpable, as they will surely grow up to be terrorists. Levy was also clear in saying that children in Gaza are given no choice BUT to hate Israel, given the number of atrocities they witness as they are growing up. “Deep hatred of Israel is totally justified” for the people of Gaza, he said.
Levy is known for being outspoken, but I was truly taken aback by some of the things he said when he met with us. He made a comparison that I would have thought was unthinkable for any Israeli, which was to say that the current Israeli discourse on Gaza was similar to Nazi discourse about Jews. He compared his own government to Nazis (I have since heard him make the same comparison when he appeared on the Piers Morgan show earlier this summer).
Levy is known in the solidarity movement as someone who will speak the truth plainly, and so his takes are always worth paying attention to. Just today, Levy published an opinion piece in Haaretz entitled, Recognition Without Rescue: the World’s Hollow Gift to Palestinians, which explains why the recent recognition of a Palestinian state by many countries at the UN is not only meaningless, but actually does more harm than good. “On the day the world recognized a Palestinian state,” he writes, “61 people were killed in Gaza, roughly the same number as on the day before and the day after, as has been the case every day in recent months. Recognition did not and will not save even one Gazan child from the bombings.”
“Anyone who, like me, was desperately hoping for a dramatic emergency move by the world to immediately stop the systematic killing and destruction in Gaza, before anything else, instead got a move that will only make things worse. The heads of state can now reassure themselves and their agitated citizens: we no longer need to lift a finger for Gaza, we’ve done our part.”
Levy understands something that the rest of the world either cannot or will not understand, which is that the two-state solution is a farce (I wrote about Levy’s views on this in an earlier post). “Tragically, to recognize a Palestinian state now is preposterous, almost crazy,” he writes. “There is no partner for a two-state solution at the moment… Gaza has been destroyed and there is no longer room in the West Bank for a state that is not a collection of Bantustans.” Just take a look at the famous land loss map of Palestine. Levy is correct. There is no way a two state solution could be made to work with the current reality on the ground.
“Do you want to save the surviving remnant of Gaza?” Levy asks at the end of the piece. “Harsh sanctions must be imposed on Israel immediately. Do you want a long-term vision? Democracy for all people from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”
As usual, Levy gets it.The recent recognition of a Palestine state is meaningless without sanctions and an international arms embargo against Israel. The only effect this recognition will have is further collective punishment of Palestinians in the West Bank. Indeed, Israel has already started this punishment by closing the border between the West Bank and Jordan— the only exit that Palestinians have from the West Bank, the only access they have to an airport, their only access to the outside world. They are now prisoners in their own land. Make no mistake, this is a direct consequence of the recent spate of state recognitions.
I feel quite comfortable saying that Levy is a hero. He is one of the most courageous journalists in the world today, willing to speak the truth, regardless of the cost. If only more journalists could be like him, in Israel, in the United States, and all over the world. Thank you, Gideon Levy. You are a light in the darkness. May your light continue to shine for many years to come. Inshallah.