He came into office amid much hoopla. The Cairo speech ignited half the globe. Making settlements the top priority gave rise to the hope that, finally, a statesman is sitting in the White House who understands that the root of all evil is the occupation, and that the root of the occupation’s evil is the settlements. From Cairo, it seemed possible to take off. The sky was the limit. Then the administration fell into the trap set by Israel and is showing no signs of recovery. Read more »
It is impossible to ignore the injustices of 1948 while hundreds of thousands of refugees rot in the camps. No agreement will hold water without a solution to their plight, which is more feasible than Israel’s strident scaremongers suggest. But rulings like the current one make it harder to distinguish clearly between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis, between the conquest of 1948 and the conquests of 1967. My house stands on land stolen by force, and it is the obligation of Israel and the world to redress the injustice without creating injustice and new dislocation. Read more »
Gideon Levy on the latest IDF highjacking of a Gaza relief boat, and on the IDF as an occupation force and a killing machine. Read more »
The Supreme Court now appears to be the settlers’ next illegal outpost. They will get their wish, nothing will stop them. This couldn’t happen in a state of law. Read more »
It’s true, there is liberty in Israel, but only for us, the Jews. We have a regime that is no less tyrannical than the ayatollahs’ regime: the regime of the officers and the settlers in the territories… When you get a chance, go on Friday to Na’alin or Bil’in and see what happens there. Demonstrators are killed here with similar brutality, but in Iran the crowd is standing up to a tyrannical regime, while here only a handful of brave people stand up to the Border Police, who are firing weapons. Moreover, we hardly write anything about the protest being silenced with bullets. It interests no one, and this, too, is called democracy. Read more »
June 18, 2009 | Posted in
Gideon Levy,
Israel |
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In the outside world such a country is called an apartheid state. In Israel they call it the one-state solution. Once it was out of bounds, only the radical left in both nations dared to suggest it. Now it is being proposed by the Israeli right, while they blur and repress the reality. Read more »
May 28, 2009 | Posted in
Gideon Levy |
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We must be thankful to Obama… he is trying to rescue Israel, the Middle East, and basically the entire world… The ball is in Netanyahu’s court. If he ends the occupation, he’ll get peace and security; if he doesn’t, he won’t.
IOA Editor: Levy’s unbridled enthusiasm about Obama’s Middle East plans is not justifiable but may be explained as a desperate desire for someone to step in and block Netanyahu – a sincere hope, but not one grounded in reality. Read more »
Mohammed Abu Akrub returned from school one afternoon and stood in the street with a few friends, doing nothing, according to him. Six Israel Defense Forces jeeps appeared suddenly and announced a curfew in the village. That was the start of the abuse of Mohammed and his five friends – abuse that continued until dawn, when the six were tossed out of the jeeps, wounded and battered. Read more »
Yitzhak Laor, our best protest poet, may soon face arrest. On Independence Day eve he published a poem in Haaretz’s literary supplement with the lines: “Perhaps shame prevents me from getting up to embrace my son / And warning him of those who want to enlist him.” Arresting Laor for having written such lines may sound like fiction, but something similar has already happened. Read more »
Twenty evacuated settlements are worth more than a thousand peace formulas, and 2,000 released prisoners will move the sides forward more than 10,000 words. If only Israel agrees to implement what it has agreed to, from the release of prisoners to a freeze on settlements Read more »