Gideon Levy’s speech saying that the Zionist left enables apartheid in Israel by providing a laundry to war crimes was a highlight of the Israel lobby conference staged at the National Press Club on Friday. The Haaretz columnist’s argument obviously extends to the Zionist left in the U.S. and its role in the Democratic Party, but I’ll get to that later.
Here are some excerpts of Levy’s remarks to the gathering staged by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Levy said there is no other name for the Israeli system except apartheid– based on the same understanding that Human Rights Watch cited in accusing Israel of the crime last year: The occupation is here to stay, it’s one sovereign Jewish state between the river and the sea.
If you look at it in a logical way, in a reasonable way, you must realize that there are no signs that the occupation is about to end– ever. This is a turning point. Because the moment we realize that the occupation is part of Israel, we must realize the consequences. And the consequences are that Israel is an apartheid state. You cannot define it any other way but this. Because as long as the occupation was temporary, Israel could claim we are a democracy, the Israeli Arabs as we call them who are Israeli citizens, can vote for the parliament and be doctors and everything, this is not apartheid. And we have this dark back yard where things are not so nice but it’s just until we find the solution. Once you admitted that you have no intention, you admitted that the occupied territories are part of Israel, We don’t have to talk about the one state solution, or the one state, because the one state exists now for 50 years. It’s one state, with many regimes, with two sets of laws, regulations and regimes to Jews and to Palestinians. How else can you call it if not apartheid? Really, it looks like apartheid, it talks like apartheid, it moves like apartheid– how else can you define a system in which at least in part of the territory, there is a very clear separation– legal, in budget, in rights, in everything?
Israelis live in complete denial of this reality, Levy went on. They believe they are a democracy and a light unto the nations. They have no idea what is taking place in the occupied territories. As long as this false reality prevails, Israelis will blissfully carry on apartheid.
You don’t know how proud Israelis are in their country, in their democracy. There is one enemy– Netanyahu who tries to destroy the famous Israeli democracy. But except of him, we are all such democrats!… How come so many Israelis– intelligent Israelis– believe it? Here I claim that, there are so many machineries which are recruited to make us not look at the truth, not look at the reality. To create ourself an alternative reality which has nothing to do with the real life, with the real reality half an hour or an hour away from our home. As long as this doesn’t change, nothing will change.
Because as long as Israelis are not bothered by the occupation, don’t pay any price for the occupation, and are not punished for the occupation, the occupation will stay there, because there’s no reason for the Israelis to do anything about it– What’s wrong?. And this secret– how relatively normal society– I don’t think Israelis are any worse than any other people in the world. They are for sure not better, but I don’t see them as much worse… But something enables them to stand behind those ongoing horrible crimes that none of them have even the idea of what is being done on his behalf, in his name. Most Israelis have no idea. OK, they have their sons who are soldiers there. It’s a small minority who serve there. And those who serve there are all so brainwashed that they don’t speak out and they don’t tell their parents. But most Israelis just close their eyes.
Levy said that there are three enablers of this false reality.
The first is the Israeli media, “the biggest collaborator with the occupation.” Though courageous in some realms, the media covers up the occupation or reports on it in “a very twisted way,” telling Israelis that Palestinians don’t love their children as Jews do.
It is always a senior in Hamas who was assassinated. You know, Hamas is a very special organization, they have only seniors. Everyone is a senior in the Hamas…. This is not a joke, They killed a child of seven in the second intifada and they claimed he was a senior in the Hamas. Seriously. They didn’t bother about his age. But the Israeli media gives it its face, gives all the services to this machinery of the army, of the secret services, of the government, to inform us in such a false way.
And this point: “Self censorship is worse than censorship, because no one fights against it.”
Next Levy blamed the Israeli left for laundering apartheid.
The second main responsible for the denial is unfortunately the Israeli left. I say it with a lot of pain because I come from there, I was brought up there, you know nobody is perfect, so I worked four years with Shimon Peres, I really came from there, from the Zionist left as we call it, and the Zionist left is the real enemy of freedom, of fighting the occupation in Israel. Much more than the right wing is.
First of all they are the founding fathers, they are the founding fathers for the settlement project. Who started it? Netanyahu, Begin, Sharon? No no no no no! Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin– Nobel Peace Prize winners, peacemakers– they are responsible. Shimon Peres is responsible for many more settlements than Benjamin Netanyahu, so they are the founding fathers.
But that’s not enough. They also enable us Israelis to feel so good about ourselves. Because they were always the laundry of any crime. And any crime went through this laundry, and we have this prestigious, world-famous Supreme Court, this castle of liberalism and open-mindedness and freedom, part of the Zionist left, most of its establishment is based on liberals and leftists, and this Supreme Court enabled any crime of war, from the settlements to the tortures, everything went through the Supreme Court and everything was washed there, and it was accepted. If the Supreme Court says there are no torturing or the settlements are legal– so who are we to say or to think different? So we owe a lot to the Israeli left, the Zionist left, which is the majority– all the Israeli left is Zionist– for maintaining this long period of crimes and occupations, because if the left supports it, maybe it’s good, maybe it’s OK, maybe it’s not so bad.
Lastly Levy blamed the international community for not putting pressure on Israel.
And the last mechanism which obviously should maybe be the first one is the international community, and that’s the reason we are gathered here today. If it’s not the international community, then the occupation would last for one day. Imagine yourself, Israel being disconnected from SWIFT [banking system]. I know it makes you laugh.. Do you think the occupation would last after it ten hours or twenty hours– that’s the only question…. And again the war in Ukraine might give some ideas. I know it sounds quite farfetched but maybe it will give some ideas. Because unlike Russia Israel is so much more fragile that any pressure– and the Israeli public is not very devoted. They couldn’t care less about the settlements. If they would have to pay a price for it, let’s see what happens.
Here I step in to say that the Israel lobby plays a crucial role in maintaining apartheid. It has protected Israel from paying any price for the occupation for more than 50 years. And liberal Zionists have a corresponding role to that of left Zionists in Israel, they keep the liberal establishment and Democratic Party on board. American liberal Zionists cannot abandon what even J Street calls a “dream”: They really do believe that the sovereignty of Jews as a nation is a miraculous deliverance from history, a great liberation and political/historical achievement. So they cover up apartheid, and they keep the American money flowing, even as they are critical of the occupation. These liberal Zionists surely do represent the bulk of American Jewry (liberal/Democratic/Israel-adoring); and they are keeping their arms around the Democratic Party. It is more than a footnote here that liberal hero Elena Kagan embraced the Israeli Supreme Court as she rose from dean of Harvard Law School to the Supreme Court. Israel’s laundry is our laundry.
If HRW and Amnesty called Russia an “apartheid” nation, America and even its zionist supporters would be all over it, outraged that the world is not doing anything about it, to boycott, sanction, and punish Russia, like they are doing right now. This is dear “wonderful” Israel, who can occupy, steal lands, kill children including babies, and have apartheid policies, with our blessings (in the form of aid, weapons and support). You can see how these pages long investigative reports from these human rights groups (including (BT’selem) have been attacked, called anti-semitic, and thrown into the dustbin by America, Israeli lobbies, other pro Israeli groups, and the “Left” Gideon Levy refers to, who seems to be suffering from guilt, when it comes to criticizing Israel. Sad situation.
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Europe Needs to Ban trade with Israeli Squatter Settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territories (juancole.com)
“Europe Needs to Ban trade with Israeli Squatter Settlements in ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’ Human Rights Watch”
EXCERPT: “(Brussels, February 21, 2022) – “The European Commission should prohibit EU trade with settlements in occupied territories globally, Human Rights Watch said today as it signed onto a European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI). The citizen-led initiative, registered with the European Commission in September 2021 & initiated on February 20, 2022, calls for adopting legislation to prohibit products originating from unlawful settlements from entering the EU market & to ban EU exports to settlements.
“The transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population to a militarily occupied territory violates the Fourth Geneva Convention &, under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is a war crime. Trading in products produced in settlements in occupied territory or with them helps to sustain these violations of international humanitarian law. It also entrenches the human rights abuses that often stem from settlements, including land confiscation, natural resource exploitation, & displacement of & discrimination against the local population.
“’Settlements unlawfully rob local populations of their land, resources, & livelihoods,’ said Bruno Stagno, chief advocacy officer at Human Rights Watch. ‘No country should be enabling the trade in goods produced as a result of land theft, displacement, & discrimination.’
“The EU should also ban trade that contributes to unlawful resource extraction in occupied territories, which is also a violation of international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said.
“Human Rights Watch joins more than 100 civil society organizations, grassroots movements, trade unions & politicians in backing the Initiative. It utilizes a provision designed to enable European citizens to direct the European Commission to consider proposed legislative action. If it amasses a million signatures, the Commission will be legally obliged to consider a ban on the trade of settlement goods. (cont’d)
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“The initiators of the ECI originally filed for registration in July 2019, but the Commission initially refused to register it, on the grounds that the initiative sought a sanction. The European Court of Justice nullified this decision in May 2021, finding that the Commission had failed to consider the initiative as a general commercial measure. This decision prompted the Commission to reverse course, register the Initiative, & recognize its own authority to regulate trade with settlements.
“The EU & member states should prohibit settlement trade to comply with its obligation under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said. The illegality of settlements under international humanitarian law is well established & stems in part from their close link with discrimination & economic harm to the local population, as set out in the International Committee of the Red Cross’s 1958 commentary on the Geneva Convention.
“Human Rights Watch has documented this phenomenon in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), where Israeli authorities have for decades imposed harsh military rule over millions of Palestinians while governing hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israeli settlers under Israeli civil law. To establish & maintain the settlement enterprise, Israeli authorities have confiscated more than two million dunams (2,000 square kilometers) of Palestinian land. Israeli authorities have confined Palestinians to living in dozens of disconnected enclaves, demolished thousands of Palestinian homes, & imposed sweeping restrictions on the freedom of movement & basic civil rights of millions, among other grave abuses.
“Such systematic repression lies at the heart of Israel’s crimes against humanity of apartheid & persecution, as Human Rights Watch & many other Palestinian, Israeli, & international human rights organizations have documented.
“Countries have a duty under international humanitarian law not to legitimatize, even if inadvertently, the transfer of civilians into settlements in the occupied territory. Nor should they deny the reality of ongoing military occupations & therefore, the application of international humanitarian law, whatever the claims of the occupying power.”
“Israel could claim we are a democracy, the Israeli Arabs as we call them who are Israeli citizens, can vote for the parliament and be doctors and everything, this is not apartheid….. there’s no reason for the Israelis to do anything about it– What’s wrong?…..Imagine yourself, Israel being disconnected from SWIFT [banking system]. Do you think the occupation would last after it ten hours or twenty hours….”
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Another article that spells out in spades the potential gain if Israeli Palestinians agitate politically for equal civil rights. Doing so would negate past narratives and brainwashing, capture the Israeli Suprems Court, bring around the US Congress and lay the groundwork for property compensations and adjustments.
Israelis live in complete denial of this reality, Levy went on. They believe they are a democracy and a light unto the nations. They have no idea what is taking place in the occupied territories.
When Miko Peled was here on a book tour, I said, “People tell me that Israeli Jews don’t know what’s going on in the occupied territories. How can that be? They serve in the army. They see it. They do it.” He answered, “They know. They just think it’s OK.”