(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
"You must be Israel's bravest man," I said as I dropped Gideon Levy off at the Hotel Continental at the National Theater during a visit to Oslo. For decades, the Israeli journalist has written a weekly column on Palestinian life in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. I think I have read them all as one – and been informed.
As a Jew in the middle of Tel Aviv, Levy dares to write what you do not find in safe Norway, in Vårt Land or Aftenposten. He has hammered down inconveniences week by week, article by article to a people who seem uninterested in what is going on just miles away, in the West Bank or in Gaza. Levy replied with a shrug: "Brave? No, no one reads what I write. I'm going under the radar. "
The laws have become perverted. And the enforcement of them even worse.
"But my modest goal with writing is that my people should not be able to say they didn't know," he says. It is a motto worthy of an award-winning journalist. And last year, the soon-to-be 70-year-old Haaretz journalist received the Sokolov Prize for his lifelong work. It is considered Israel's best. Levy probably no longer goes under the radar.
Israel is an apartheid state
Today he says over the phone with MODERN TIMES: "I consider myself an Israeli patriot, but today I am ashamed of what is happening here. I once thought that abuse was due to a few 'rotten apples', but now I know that it is systematic. The laws have become perverted. And the enforcement of them even worse. So I've probably come a long way from the time I was an enthusiastic, nationalistic, Jewish puppy. Only today have I been able to openly describe and name my country's racist construction and actions. It's only been a few years since I came to that realization, but I didn't dare say that Israel is an apartheid state. Today I dare to say it. And I am allowed to write it, not least. Fortunately, I'm not alone in that."
This year, Levy has been with Haaretz newspaper for 40 years. He is versatile. He has hosted talk shows, written books and article series. He is a rare communicator – something that the fate of the Palestinians benefits from.
"When I started at the paper, I was an ordinary brainwashed Jewish youth," he says. But the newspaper Haaretz has supported him all the way until today's weekly, well-documented articles that also cause regular accusations of being anti-Semitic and self-hating Jews.
I ask him if he is subject to name-calling: “All the time. But I don't feel threatened. That's the beauty of a country like Israel: the abusers feel safe, and they can afford to have someone like me. 'Look how free and democratic we are', they sort of say."
"You are branded as a pariah and a leper."
Levy recently squared off with Israeli historian Gadi Taub about whether it's okay to be anti-Zionist. "No," says Taub. "Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism!" Levy wrote about Taub's statements, on 30.01.2021/XNUMX/XNUMX: "Taub represents those who believe that Zionism is holy, infallible, and that all criticism is illegitimate... And you are labeled as anti-Semitic. Taub knows no other way to deal with criticism of anti-Zionism other than to judge it as anti-Semitism... In this way, Zionism becomes a tyrannical ideology.”
He continues: "If Zionists like Taub were more convinced that they had a just cause, they would not be so anxious-
bitter towards every criticism and every question…. This is how it is when you have weak arguments: delegitimization [of critics] is the only way out.”
"Zionists cling to the 'new definition' of anti-Semitism."
I mention that anti-Semitism has gained extra topicality with statements from The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA):
"The Zionists cling to the 'new definition' of anti-Semitism," says Levy. "The IHRA's 'working definition' has become the new weapon to crush all criticism of Israel," he continues. “And this weapon works. Slowly but surely, critics of Israel are being silenced. You are labeled as a pariah and a leper. I have experienced it myself. When I was invited to give a lecture in Berlin recently, it was impossible to get a venue. People were scared. Municipal Volksbühne was closed to 'anti-Semites' like me! In Germany in the 21st century! In the end, there was a Coptic priest several miles outside the city who offered us his church," he recalls.
There are, however, forces that oppose the IHRA. The progressive groups in the United States, such as Jewish Voice for Peace, J-Street, Americans for Peace Now and the Progressive Israeli Network gathered and wrote to Biden that he must reject the IHRA's "working definition". They are particularly critical of the fact that calling Israel "racist" can be labeled as "anti-Semitism". The differences between the ethnic groups have even been enshrined in legislation.
The US government under Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo declared that "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism". Then the road was short to declaring the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) as anti-Semitic, and that was how the problem had been solved. Levy supports said campaign. "The fear of, and the opposition to, the non-violent BDS campaign shows that it actually works," says Levy. But even Trump had to put aside the attempt to smear pro-BDS movements as anti-Semitic. Freedom of speech got in the way.
"What can the Israeli government do to combat anti-Semitism?" I want to know eventually.
The answer comes immediately: "It is said that anti-Semitism surges in step with the tensions and violence in the Middle East. Therefore: Lift the illegal and inhumane siege and blockade of the world's largest prison, Gaza. Without conditions. It will be a first step in the direction of humanity and peacebuilding. It could be a sign that Israel actually wants peace.”
