(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
He stands with his back to the wet sunshine drifting up the mountainside from Gullfoss in Iceland. The huge bodies of water that plunge into the black nothing far down there invite neither conversation nor comment. A beautiful rainbow forms in harmony with a low sun behind us.
what is he thinking Gideon Levy, Israel's iconic journalist of a lifetime and well so. He is on a lecture tour this summer. Retired, but active as never before. We get to be with him for a few days in the summer-cool, rainy Iceland. Far away from Mediterranean beaches and dry riverbeds along the Jordan Valley. Far away from threatening bulldozers against Palestinian homes – and teenagers with machine guns who dog pregnant women at the border crossings at Kalandiya. Gideon Levy enjoys the sunshine at Gullfossen.
He suddenly saw that his state was an apartheid state.
70-year-old and retired, yes. But in the newspaper Haaretz, he still throws himself in, week after week, with self-excavated, well-documented events, as fearless as precise commentary on current life in Israel, which he has faithfully served since he was born in wealthy Tel Aviv in 1953. He was a Zionist until well into his mature age.
"I was one of them," he tells a gathering in Reykjavík's noble Safnahúsið, this June Saturday. Yes, he was one of those who believed in this promised land. Israel's right to every square meter that was "promised to us". Who saw Palestinians solely as pebbles in the shoe of this well-oiled Zionist dream of prosperity – a peaceful haven from an evil world that wishes all Jews evil. A safe haven against future holocaust in a wasteland they could only feed on…
But then the snake came crawling into Gideon's horizon. He asks: What gave us the right to do all this violence against the land, nature and its inhabitants from time immemorial? He saw infants and 80-year-olds being killed – and ignored. He saw a "democracy" that only defined "the others" as inferior citizens who would be happy to move if they did not feel comfortable as second-class. He suddenly saw that his state was an apartheid state – something he had not seen before. At first he thought so. Now he dares to say it. And write it. Apartheid Israel. And he dares to support the BDS campaigns that call for boycotts even though this violates new Israeli laws.
The writing
He does not write speech scripts, Gideon Levy, nor for the meeting in the cultural center/library Safnahúsið. He speaks straight from the heart – because he lives this fight. Here in Reykjavík, he hits hearts. And it's not a cliché. The assembly is schooled. They get confirmed and reinforced knowledge from someone who knows what he is talking about. He has lived this. Lived experience. Live shame. Because he was one of them. And the congregation knows how to appreciate his willingness to tell.
Yes, Israel is an apartheid state. Parts of the population do not live under the same law. They do not have the same rights. Not the same support schemes. Not the same support from the police or law enforcement. Not the same schools, the same working conditions. Levy has thrown himself into the fight against this.
The fact that he is traveling does not mean that Gideon Levy has taken time off from writing in Haaretz and the fight:
- June 26: Who will protect the Palestinians?
- June 28: Is the Israeli brigade commander a murderer?
- July 1: A peaceful life? Think of Israel and think the opposite.
- July 6: Jenin's children will never forget
- July 8: Settlers invade private land. Palestinian owners arrested. A new outpost is born.
And on 9 July he writes the article "How dare you fight for democracy, Ehud Barak?". Here Levy goes at the throat of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who supports the democracy riots in the city. How dare Barak even take the word 'democracy' in his mouth? Barak fights for jews only- democracy. Barak, who led Operation Cast Lead – the attack on Gaza that killed 1385 children, civilians and police. Levy speaks directly to Barak: "If you were a Palestinian," Levy asks, "would you participate in these democracy demonstrations?" Levy plays on a famous interview with Barak in which he is asked what he would have done if he were a Palestinian youth in today's Israel: He would probably join a terrorist organization, admitted the former prime minister.
When will Støre...
What is Gideon Levy thinking in the drizzle at Gullfoss? With the sun behind us and a solid rainbow over the waterfall. Later we see the hot Geisir cascades and finally stand at what Icelanders call the cradle of democracy, Tingvellir.
At Tingvellir, the Eurasian and American continental shelves meet. Tingvellir is the democracy-thing from the Viking Age. We are talking here about the 900s. In Tingvellir, the continental divide moves 2 centimeters a year. The country is still experimenting with democratic models. Israel's jews onlymodel is not one of them.
They steal water and land, smash homes, cultural monuments, thousand-year-old trees, children
- and hope.
The famous Oslo agreements did not move by 2 cm. a year, but with thousands of illegal civilian Zionist invading steps into Palestinian land. They are crawling like the American continental shelf eastward – stealing water and land, smashing homes, cultural monuments, thousand-year-old trees, children – and hope. Changes conditions 'on the ground' and asks no one for permission. Raw, brutal and de facto accepted by the democracies outside.
The countries behind the agreement – Norway included – "protest to the world, but are willingly going along". They willingly include Israel in all good company. Trades in Israeli goods, conducts research, technology and intelligence cooperation, shares cultural encounters and friendships. All while smilingly allowing a people to be trampled down on their way to a well-directed oblivion, a genocide in slow motion where the use of the word 'genocide' (nakhba) creates more anger than the genocide itself, the displaced, tortured and daily humiliated.
In an Israel that has been taught that Palestinians are subhuman.
Levy makes us think: When will Palestine participate in the Melodi Grand Prix? When will Palestine get its national stadium with its football team in a national match with Norway? When will Prime Minister Støre visit the nation of Palestine and Gaza and give strength to those persecuted for almost 80 years? When will 75 billion be poured in as a first, small, Norwegian contribution to the restoration of a bombed-out people and nation? When will we publicly hang our heads in shame for having contributed to this apartheid state's nuclear weapons program? When will Norway fight for Palestine to get its democracy? When will Norway build the Palestinians' Yad Vashem?
Gideon Levy will not have to think about what we in Norway will contribute. But even I can't let go of the thought, where I walk in the shadow of a journalistic icon who will soon return and face his daily scorn in an Israel that has been taught that Palestinians are subhuman, yes, that has written it into its constitution . And who in 2023 will be allowed to continue to think this and still meet smiles in the good, 'international community'.
