Gideon Levy

Thanks to The Washington Post

Gideon Levy — 2007-09-18T12:00:00Z

We can rely on friends like the United States: Our faithful ally has once again come to our assistance. Were it not for the American media, we would know nothing whatsoever about that mysterious night. Only because of the United States is the fog now beginning to lift. It is such a sign of weakness that 10 days after the action that was - or was not - taken by the Israel Air Force in Syria, the Israelis were fated to grope around in the dark or to rely on the American media, as if there were no local media here.

The combination of sweeping censorship and media representatives that do not fight enough on behalf of the freedom of information is dangerous. Israel attacks, or does not attack, bombs or does not bomb - who knows? And nothing is said to the people, everything is secret, without any public supervision or accountability. The public is expected to keep quiet and to blindly support its government and army, no matter what. This is an intolerable situation at all events, but the special circumstances of the incident in Syria make the blackout on it especially dangerous. (...)

The mystery of America

Gideon Levy — 2006-10-08T13:47:00Z

It happens once every few months. Like a periodic visit by an especially annoying relative from overseas, Condoleezza Rice was here again. The same declarations, the same texts devoid of content, the same sycophancy, the same official aircraft heading back to where it came from. The results were also the same: Israel promised in December, after a stormy night of discussions, to open the "safe passage" between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This time, in what was considered the "achievement" of the current visit, Israel also promised to open the Karni crossing. Karni will be open, one can assume, only slightly more than the "safe passage," which never opened following the previous futile visit.

Rice has been here six times in the course of a year and a half, and what has come of it? Has anyone asked her about this? Does she ask herself? (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Mariya of the sorrows

Gideon Levy — 2006-06-16T09:35:00Z

A happy ending? Not an ending, and not happy. Mariya Aman was transferred this week to the Alyn children's hospital in Jerusalem, after Israel had been on the point of returning her to Gaza, paralyzed and on a respirator. The little girl, aged 3 and a half, who lost her mother, her brother and her grandmother about a month ago, will have to undergo a rehabilitation process of several months. At the end of it, perhaps she will at least be able to breathe on her own, to speak, and maybe even to get out of bed. About half a year, maybe more, maybe less, according to the doctor's estimate - during which time she will be hospitalized

in this excellent hospital. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Paralyzed for life

Gideon Levy — 2006-06-11T09:49:00Z

Even when nobody is discussing the legality of the assassination policy, let alone its morality, one must ask why the lobbying efforts of a physicians' group, an opposition MK and the media were needed to drag the minimum human effort out of a state that claims to be morally upstanding.

The tangle of tubes and the artificial respirator attached directly to her windpipe cannot hide her beauty. A little 3-year-old girl lying in the pediatric intensive care unit at Sheba Medical Center, Maria Aman's sad, brown almond eyes are wide open, her lips murmur in a whisper: "Food, I want to eat," but all her limbs are paralyzed, forever. Not far from there, in an intensive care unit at Ichilov Hospital, lies her uncle Nahed, age 33 and father of two, who is in even worse condition: He is not only on a respirator and completely paralyzed, he is being kept asleep.

No, these are not the victims of this weekend's operation, but their predecessors - victims of an airborne assassination in Gaza three weeks ago yesterday, an operation that shocked almost nobody here in Israel. The events of this past weekend should not come as a surprise to anyone: The deterioration has been going on for weeks, and the question that should be asked is not what Israel is doing to counter the Qassams, but what it is not doing. An army that fires missiles at busy streets and tank shells at a beach cannot claim there was no intent to harm innocent civilians. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Deadly sights and sounds

Gideon Levy — 2006-06-09T21:24:00Z

Only the birds still get excited by the shells. After each landing, a flock of black birds scatters in panic in the sky. The residents for their part continue with their daily routine, as though the noise were thunder. At a certain point we also become accustomed to it, and pay attention to the order of events: First you hear the muffled boom, the sound of the launching; then you see the mushroom of dust climbing skyward; immediately afterward you hear the whistle of the shell; and finally you hear the tremendou s explosion when it falls. That's how it is, one after the other, shell after shell - the sights and the sounds - every day of the week in the northern Gaza Strip. A hundred shells for every Qassam rocket, according to a cautious estimate.

The shells fall about a kilometer from us, in western Beit Lahia, a distance that is not far enough to leave you apathetic. Every few minutes - another one. They fall between the orchards and the houses, in the "open areas," in which for some stupid reason human beings happen to be walking around. Every few days someone is killed there. First it is a 67-year-old camel herder, then it's a 49-year-old watermelon grower and now it's a 43-year-old farmer - all of them leaving pain and bereavement behind them. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

With a little help from the outside

Gideon Levy — 2006-06-04T09:48:00Z

The laugh of fate: The state waging a broad international campaign for a boycott is simultaneously waging a parallel campaign, no less determined, against a boycott. A boycott that seriously harms the lives of millions of people is legitimate in its eyes because it is directed against those defined as its enemies, while a boycott that is liable to hurt its academic ivory tower is illegitimate in its eyes only because it is aimed against itself. This is a moral double standard. Why is the boycott campaign against the Palestinian Authority, including blocking essential economic aid and boycotting leaders elected in democratic and legal elections, a permissible measure in Israel's eyes and the boycott of its universities is forbidden? (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Collateral damage:Entire Gaza family

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-31T20:25:00Z

The entire family of Hamdi Aman, a 28-year-old Palestinian from Gaza who spent his youth in Tel Aviv's Carmel market, was hit in the assassination of Islamic Jihad operative Mohammed Dahdouh in Gaza a week and a half ago.

Aman's 7-year-old son Muhand was killed; Naima, his wife, 27, was killed; his mother Hanan, 46, was killed. His three and a half year old daughter Mariya is lying in the pediatric intensive care unit at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, permanently paralyzed and on a respirator. Aman is not allowed to be with her. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Bush and Olmert - an alliance of bullies

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-28T10:39:33Z

America and Israel can use any possible weapon to their hearts' content and at the same time threaten anyone who tries to do the same. Why? Because they are strong.

Was the prime minister's address on Capitol Hill interrupted by applause 38 times, as Maariv and Haaretz reported, or 41, as Yedioth Ahronoth said? Was it the "speech of his life" or his "victory lap?" Does it matter? Those who read the flood of praise heaped by a uniform chorus in the Israeli press on Ehud Olmert might think this was a historic visit that managed to significantly advance the achievement of peace in the Middle East. It was nothing of the kind.

In Washington, there was a meeting of the leaders of two countries that share, as the prime minister rightly said in his speech, "common principles and values." The United States and Israel are two of the most hated countries in the world these days. Both are responsible for brutal occupations and the bloodshed of innocents; both are fighting terrorism without regard for its reasons and true root causes; both endanger world peace and their leaders scatter slogans about peace that are empty of any content; both are surrounding themselves with walls. The only difference between them is that if there are signs in the U.S. of an awakening from the deception of the criminal war in Iraq, three years after it began; in Israel, people are still sticking to all the lies of the past about the connection between the territories and security, even 39 years after the occupation began. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

A doctor without borders

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-26T08:18:57Z

This is a story about a resident of the Shoafat refugee camp who holds a blue Israeli ID card and has been a Bezeq employee for the past 20 years. He suffered a heart attack and waited more than an hour and a half from the moment he lost consciousness at home until he was brought to the emergency room of Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, a five-minute drive from his home. The refugee camp, with a population of 40,000, does not have a single ambulance. This is also a story about a Magen David Adom (MDA) team that decided to act with courage and dedication, in defiance of procedure, in an attempt to save the man's life.

What happened during the critical period, from the time the patient fainted at his home until he was declared dead at the hospital? Two MDA ambulances, first an ordinary ambulance and later an intensive care unit as well, arrived within minutes after being called, at the checkpoint that places the Shoafat refugee camp under siege. About another hour went by until the Israel Defense Forces escort arrived. Without such an escort, the ambulance is not permitted to enter this refugee camp, which is a Jerusalem suburb for all intents and purposes. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

The inferiority of human rights

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-21T14:11:00Z

No e-mail to Yale will succeed in blurring the face of Barak's true legacy: A court that refrains from taking a stand on the matter of the settlements and the targeted assassinations, that does not prevent mass demolition of homes and that has for years evaded taking a stance on the matter of torture is a court that is not courageous and is tainted with the curse of the occupation.

Supreme Court President Aharon Barak sent an e-mail to a colleague of his who is a lecturer at Yale University. Perhaps Barak did not intend his letter for public reading, but it can be expected that the president of the Supreme Court knows to whom he can write a letter and know his correspondent will keep it a secret. Barak erred, and the letter came into the hands of Haaretz reporter Yuval Yoaz, who published it. Perhaps Barak took this possibility into account. Perhaps, deep in his heart, he even wanted this to happen. In any case, as someone who is a great believer in freedom of expression, it can be assumed he likely won't have complaints about the publication of his letter. It is of great interest to the public. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Game theory

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-14T09:27:00Z

This was an especially short masked ball: Two or three months and the "boycott" party of the Palestinian Authority ended. It was also an especially stupid masked ball: Hamas can now brandish a real achievement. Israel and the world have surrendered unconditionally, and the flow of money to the territories is being renewed.

The problem is that some of the masks have remained, and the foolishness continues: Israel and the world will not transfer monies "directly" to the Hamas government, but rather by means of a special "Hamas bypass" mechanism. This unnecessary mask will also be removed quickly.

What has Israel gained from this game? Nothing. It has only lost. The pictures of shortages and distress have been chalked up, and rightly so, to Israel. And how does the world look when it dances, just like that, automatically, to Israel's pipe? Apart from another several thousand families who have joined the circle of poverty in the occupied territories, nothing has come of this cat-and-mouse game that the world played, under Israel's coaching, with the elected Palestinian government. A Nobel Prize that was given to an Israeli for game theory was certainly not intended for games like these. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Not without my daughter

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-12T15:25:00Z

We first met in the winter of 1998 in Bethlehem. At the time, Etaf Alyan had been released from administrative detention, several months after completing a 10-year prison term for preparing a booby-trapped car and attacking a prison guard. She was a local heroine: Her 40-day hunger strike in prison, in protest over her arrest without trial, ignited a fire in the territories at the time. Veiled and charismatic, the Palestinian "Joan of Arc," as she was then dubbed, told her story.

She was a communist in her youth and an Islamic Jihad activist when she grew up, whose brother was beaten to death by soldiers in 1976 and whose uncle was shot and died in her father's arms in their lost village of Hulda in 1948. In her fast and rather twisted Hebrew, she told me at the time in her thin voice, through the veil, about her man - Israeli prisoner Hafez Kundus from Jaffa, who was convicted of attempting to murder an Arab from Jaffa who had sold land that belonged to the Waqf (Muslim religious trust) to Jews. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Starting off on the wrong foot

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-07T06:12:00Z

Amir Peretz has started his term on the wrong foot: He approved the aerial bombing on Friday night that killed five Palestinians, activists in the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza. According to reports, one of those killed is the brother of Mumtaz Durmish, a leader of the committees, who was behind the thwarted attack at the Karni crossing. The rest were defined, as usual, as "activists in the committees." Did the five deserve to die? It is hard to know. One can assume the defense minister also does not know. It was reported to the media that Peretz asked before the operation whether "innocents" would be hurt and that the response was "probably not." Peretz did what was expected of him and approved the liquidation. Was this bombing absolutely necessary? Certainly not. It will only generate another Palestinian response in the cycle of blood. Thus, in his first security decision, Peretz already appears to be the disciple of Shaul Mofaz - an extremely bad sign. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Days of thunder

Gideon Levy — 2006-05-05T06:18:05Z

Boom after boom, shell after shell, thunder after thunder. The windows of the houses shake, the walls that were cracked during the previous shelling are already threatening to collapse from the blast, the children scream in fear or walk around shocked and silent in the shelled house. One shell after another, every few minutes another one. Sometimes there is a vague and distant noise, and sometimes there is a thundering and very nearby BOOM!!!! The skies tremble, the end of the world. Boom after boom, a shell every five minutes. It is impossible to know where the last one landed, much less where the next one will land. Yesterday afternoon a shell landed on the heads of these children and adults, whose home we are now visiting. Boom after boom, even now, terrible fear. (...)

- / Ha'aretz

Abu Tir or Abu Tur

Gideon Levy — 2006-04-23T12:03:46Z

Israel does not remain silent in the face of terror attacks: In a consultation of ministers in the Prime Minister's Office, it was decided to respond to the attack in Tel Aviv by "stripping the residency" of three Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament who reside in East Jerusalem. In simple language, this is called expulsion. The attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, was quick to certify this abomination as "kosher." In this case, he did not need time to reach a decision, despite the fact that it constitutes collective punishment - only because "Hamas leaders failed to denounce the attack" and "some even justified it." (...)

- / Ha'aretz