Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy (Template:Lang-he; born 1955) is an Israeli journalist for the Haaretz newspaper, where he is also an editorial board member. He is a prominent left-wing commentator. He served as spokesman for Shimon Peres from 1978 until 1982.

Background

Levy was born in 1955 in Tel Aviv, the son of European immigrants. He describes his adolescence as one in which he was "a full member of the nationalistic religious orgy." From 1978 to 1982 he served, together with Yossi Beilin, as an aide to Shimon Peres. Since 1982 he has worked for the Israeli daily Haaretz and from 1986 has written extensively in its pages on 'the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and Palestinian life under that occupation'. In 1996 he was awarded the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The French newspaper Le Monde has described him as a 'thorn in Israel's flank'.

Political views

Levy himself has spoken of his 'modest mission to prevent a situation in which many Israelis will be able to say, "We didn't know".' A recurrent theme in his articles is what he describes as Israeli society's 'moral blindness' to the effects of its acts of war and occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. He has criticized Israel's government for refusing to stop the construction of settlements on private Palestinian land, describing the policy as 'the most criminal enterprise in [Israel's] history'. He decries an attitude which reflects, he believes, Israel's systematic dehumanization of its neighbors.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, he shared the minority view among Israeli commentators which dismissed the idea that it was a 'just war', of the kind in which civilian casualties were both inevitable and acceptable. He is for the unilateral cession of the Occupied Palestinian Territories without asking for concessions.

Israel is not being asked "to give" anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return - to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity. This is the primary core issue, the only one worthy of the title, and no one talks about it anymore. No one is talking about morality anymore. Justice is also an archaic concept, a taboo that has deliberately been erased from all negotiations. Two and a half million people - farmers, merchants, lawyers, drivers, daydreaming teenage girls, love-smitten men, old people, women, children and combatants using violent means for a just cause - have all been living under a brutal boot for 40 years. Meanwhile, in our cafes and living rooms the conversation is over giving or not giving. . . Just as a thief cannot present demands - neither preconditions nor any other terms - to the owner of the property he has robbed, Israel cannot present demands to the other side as long as the situation remains as it is.

While working in Gaza in early 2007 with a French film crew that was making a documentary about him, Levy declared on camera that the Gazans' plight made him ashamed to be an Israeli.

Criticism

Gideon Levy's approach to Palestinian issues has aroused strong criticism for what has been described as "far left" opinions and he is on record as saying that somewhere in Haaretz's newsroom there exists a thick file of notifications by regular readers canceling their subscriptions after reading his articles.

Several cancellations saw mainstream publicity, such as when Israeli novelist Irit Linur, in announcing the cancellation of her own subscription, argued that the newspaper had become compromised by a radical anti-Zionist,^-[a] pro-Palestinian agenda, and she cited Levy's work and ideology as an example.^-[b] Also, Roni Daniel, the military and security correspondent for Israeli Channel 2 news noted in an interview with 7 Nights, a weekly section in Yediot Ahronoth, that while he has no opposition to criticism, he cancelled his subscription upon Levy's use of a television review section to criticize his correspondence. Haaretz's publisher, Amos Schocken, expressed puzzlement at Linur's public letter, describing his newspaper as "exceedingly Zionist" and suggesting Levy's reports should be "read mainly as a description to the effect of the Israeli occupation in the territories".

A number of journalists and media analysts, such as Ben Dror Yemini and PMW's Itamar Marcus, have accused Levi of promoting Palestinian violence and of being, along with fellow Haaretz correspondents Amira Hass and Danny Rubinstein, glorified by the Palestinian media and having his views used as "proof of the justness of their way against Israel". Others have claimed that he makes no attempt at keeping a universal perspective on morality in the Arab-Israeli conflict but rather portrays a distinct and "particular attitude towards the State of Israel". He was also accused by the likes of Steven Plaut, a critic of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations process, of 'celebrating the victory of Hamas'; and Gideon Ezra, the former deputy Minister of Internal Security in Israel, suggested that the General Security Services should monitor Levy and supervise his reports as he is treading on the borderline of someone having anti-Israeli interests.

External links

• Interview with Levy on PBS (2003)
• Articles on Iran: 'Days of darkness' by Gideon Levy
• Selection of articles by Levy
• Article about Levy in the French daily Le Monde September 2006
• Gideon Levy's Official Lecturer Page
• Author: Gideon Levy (voltairenet.org)
• Twilight Zone 'We saw death a thousand times'
• Gideon Levy, ‘One swift kick’, Haaretz 6/6/2008
• Gideon Levy, 'The neighborhood bully strikes again ', Haaretz 12/28/2008
• An open letter to Gideon Levy By A.B. Yehoshua, Haaretz 16/01/2009
• [1]An open response to A.B. Yehoshua, By Gideon Levy