Gideon Levy: The world is sick of Israel and its insanities

[blake 3:17]

Brother is calling it.

The world is sick of Israel and its insanities
Israel is discovering that it’s no longer the center of attention as it always was before.
By Gideon Levy | Jun. 26, 2014 |

What a cruel world: Three yeshiva students were kidnapped, and the world isn’t interested; three mothers are crying out, and the world doesn’t answer. It’s all because the entire world is against us; it’s anti-Semitic and hates Israel. The Anti-Defamation League is already preparing a report. But the truth is, that’s just the way things are: When you openly thumb your nose at the world for years on end, eventually, it thumbs its nose back.

The three mothers went all the way to Geneva. One of them went abroad for the first time in her life to go to the United Nations Human Rights Council. But the world, and the council, went on their merry ways. It’s the irony of fate: About two years ago, Israel officially suspended cooperation with that council; together with the Marshall Islands, Palau and the U.S., it opposed the council’s very establishment. But now, in its distress and the mothers’ distress, it has turned to the council, which is indeed hostile to Israel and spends more time on it than on any other country. Suddenly, Israel needs the world. It even needs the UN, which all of a sudden isn’t the worthless body Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion once termed it.

It takes considerable effrontery to demand that the world interests itself in the fate of three abducted Israelis, and considerable chutzpah to be disappointed by the fact that it has kept silent. Granted, Israel tried to move heaven and earth, and its ambassador/propagandist at the UN gave a moving speech in an effort to scrape up a few more public diplomacy points against Hamas. But once it was paying attention already, that bizarre world was more interested in the campaign of collective punishment imposed on thousands of West Bank residents after the kidnapping.

That’s the way things are with the world-that’s-entirely-against-us: It’s more interested in the half-century-old occupation; it’s more upset over the fate of three million Palestinians than the fate of three Israelis. The world has no lack of kidnapping victims, but none of them ever got the attention received by kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. With the three current kidnap victims, however, Israel no longer had a chance. Over the last two weeks, which I spent in Sweden, I didn’t run across a single mention of the abduction in the media. Not one.

That’s what rotten fruit looks like. The world has no reason be more interested in the fate of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrah and Gilad Shaar than it is in the fate of their age mate Mohammed Dudin, a boy of 15 who was killed by live fire from Israeli soldiers in Dura last Friday.

It has no reason to be especially moved by the haunting words of Rachel Fraenkel, who related that her Naftali is a good boy who loves to play guitar and soccer, when Mohammed was also a good boy, who helped his father build their house during his school vacations and sold sweets to help support his family. Rachel wants to hug Naftali? Jihad, Mohammed’s bereaved father, also wants to hug his son. Incidentally, nobody brought him to Geneva. He remained alone with his mourning, at the wretched house whose construction hasn’t yet been finished, and perhaps never will be.

The world is a mess, as they say. In Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and even Ukraine, the situation is far crueler. Yet the complete lack of interest in the kidnapped Israelis doesn’t stem from that alone. It’s impossible to demand sympathy from the world when Israel ignores the world’s decisions; it’s impossible to demand action when Israel is perpetuating the occupation; and it’s impossible to demand solidarity with the fate of Israeli victims when that same victimized Israel continues to kill, wound and arrest innocents as a matter of routine.

Now Israel is discovering that it’s no longer the center of attention as it always was before, and that the fate of its kidnapping victims no longer stops the world in its tracks, not even in the United States. The world is sick of Israel and its insanities. Unfortunately, the world has also lost interest in what happens here. When Israel was a more just country, the world identified with its victims. It continued to do so even when Israel became less just. But now, when Israeli rejectionism is hitting new heights and its oppression of the Palestinians is returning to what it was during the very worst periods, the world has started getting tired of it all. Even the kidnapped Nigerian girls interest it more.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.601243

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

He's articulated so neatly everything I want to say about this current situation. Really lucid article.

[Hagalaz]

Interesting article.
but the U.S. and Germany will continue to dance to Israels tune.
Count on it.

[Rafiq]

Interesting article.
but the U.S. and Germany will continue to dance to Israels tune.
Count on it.

Anti semitism at its purest

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Anti semitism at its purest
I think conflating the recognition of the nation state of Israel as the international ally of western capital in the Middle East with the discrimination of Jews is ridiculous.

.... then again, if Hagalaz literally means that the US bourgeois state's policy is dictated by Israel then they are a moron.

[Revolver]

Levy's views have evolved over the last few years, but at base reflect an emerging consensus: The two state solution, to the extent it ever represented a viable option, is dead, and international support for the existing apartheid state is diminishing rapidly as a result of this as well as the difficulties created by US intervention in Iraq, the civil war in Syria, the destabilizing impact of the Arab Spring, and of course the American-Iranian problems. Moreover, Likud governments are terrible for the US, because their rejectionist rhetoric and settlement expansion makes it difficult to endorse the Israeli position with a straight face.

Of course, Levy is a hated figure in Israel. If the left is to be tolerated at all, Uri Avnery (or someone similar) is the preferred voice, not Levy or Ilan Pappe. Because they represent a rejection of Israel's raison d'etre, one that is strangely taken for granted in the US given that our own "melting pot" or "mosaic" models, take your pick, require the elimination of narrow ethnic nationalist sentiments. Not so for Israel.

Anyway, without considerable external pressure that state is going to devolve into something far worse than its current politics, which are already terrible. It is somewhat ironic to see the state's venom directed at the ultra-Orthodox, who are now blamed (at least in part) for the decline of middle class living standards. This new coalition remains committed to settlement expansion, however, so there's no possibility of changing course on the underlying tensions in the Zionist expansion project.

[Rafiq]

I think conflating the recognition of the nation state of Israel as the international ally of western capital in the Middle East with the discrimination of Jews is ridiculous.


This is not what was said. What was said was that Germany and the U.S. would continue to "dance to Israel's tune".

[consuming negativity]

I think conflating the recognition of the nation state of Israel as the international ally of western capital in the Middle East with the discrimination of Jews is ridiculous.

.... then again, if Hagalaz literally means that the US bourgeois state's policy is dictated by Israel then they are a moron.

It is dictated by reality, of which Israel is a somewhat important part. The statement is only moronic if by "dictated by Israel" you mean to say that Hagalaz is implying that there are big-nosed Jewish puppetmasters with pots of gold controlling every aspect of the global political economy from their secret lair on an island with a smoking skull-shaped volcano. There is nothing, however, anti-semitic about stating that the US and Germany are Israeli allies who have a bilateral relationship with Israel through which they support Israeli crimes against humanity. And I've yet to see any evidence that Hagalaz made that statement in any other way.

[Revolver]

If I may make an observation: when the roving bands of nationalists initiating anti-Arab pogroms throughout the land of Israel are Jewish nationalists (or as we say, Zionists), it seems incongruous to ferret out hidden and exceedingly esoteric versions of anti-Semitism from "Germany dances to the tune of Israel." It is clunky at best, sure, but why the hell do we care? Why privilege the nationalist aggressors with the liberal concessions they deny their victims?

[blake 3:17]

He's articulated so neatly everything I want to say about this current situation. Really lucid article.

Gideon Levy is excellent. He's been covering the occupation for 30 years or so. Served in the IDF. Very very thoughtful and well informed. You can see more of his articles at Haaretz and quite often at the Guardian.

[GerrardWinstanley]

Unfortunately, the world has also lost interest in what happens here. When Israel was a more just country, the world identified with its victims. It continued to do so even when Israel became less just.I take it he doesn't mean Palestinians.

Yeah, bring back the days when the Israeli expansionism and racism were a force for good in the world. What is there to say about an Israeli "Left" commentator who thinks that the Israeli aggressor is a democracy and that the Israeli aggressor had no obligation (http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/the-simon-round-interview/38184/interview-gideon-levy) to work towards a peace agreement with Hamas at the time of Cast Lead?

Round of applause to Gideon Levy. You can still be a apologist for war crimes, even at the frontiers of permissible "Left" opinion in Israeli society.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I think conflating the recognition of the nation state of Israel as the international ally of western capital in the Middle East with the discrimination of Jews is ridiculous.

Not only ridiculous, but flame-baiting worthy of a restriction. Seriously.

[Luís Henrique]

.... then again, if Hagalaz literally means that the US bourgeois state's policy is dictated by Israel then they are a moron.

To put it simply, the US are the musicians, Israel are the dancers. Not the other way round.

Luís Henrique

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

If I may make an observation: when the roving bands of nationalists initiating anti-Arab pogroms throughout the land of Israel are Jewish nationalists (or as we say, Zionists), it seems incongruous to ferret out hidden and exceedingly esoteric versions of anti-Semitism from "Germany dances to the tune of Israel." It is clunky at best, sure, but why the hell do we care? Why privilege the nationalist aggressors with the liberal concessions they deny their victims?

Racism is disgusting whether or not it is on the part of an oppressor or an oppressed people. We shouldn't give groups like Hamas a pass when they celebrate antisemitic bullshit like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion just because the Palestinians are oppressed. This is even more the case when the reactionary, bigoted views of the representatives of the oppressed become utilized by the oppressor as "proof" of the legitimacy of oppression. The cleansing of Palestinian lands and anti-Jewish Arab riots are both problematic, and being critical of one and not the other merely creates space for a new oppressor to emerge.


I take it he doesn't mean Palestinians.

Yeah, bring back the days when the Israeli expansionism and racism were a force for good in the world. What is there to say about an Israeli "Left" commentator who thinks that the Israeli aggressor is a democracy and that the Israeli aggressor had no obligation (http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/the-simon-round-interview/38184/interview-gideon-levy) to work towards a peace agreement with Hamas at the time of Cast Lead?

Round of applause to Gideon Levy. You can still be a apologist for war crimes, even at the frontiers of permissible "Left" opinion in Israeli society.

There should be no doubts that Gideon Levy is a liberal zionist, but I think he nevertheless ends up focusing his ire on the fact that the Israeli state contradicts its democratic pretenses through its treatment of the Palestinians. One can be critical of the basic assumptions of his politics while recognizing his stances against settler violence and IDF violence against Palestinians.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There should be no doubts that Gideon Levy is a liberal zionist, but I think he nevertheless ends up focusing his ire on the fact that the Israeli state contradicts its democratic pretenses through its treatment of the Palestinians. One can be critical of the basic assumptions of his politics while recognizing his stances against settler violence and IDF violence against Palestinians.

We would probably just seem less like anachronistic cranks if we dropped this homage to ad hominem that is endemic on the left. It's kinda like getting our cocks out on the table and measuring whose is biggest - this whole calling someone a 'liberal' just to sort of satisfy yourself that you're a purer sort of revolutionary than someone else.

Engaging with the content of the article, it is clear that Levy is talking of a "more just" country in the past, probably before the two intifadas, the actions in 2012 and currently, rather than an actually "just" country. I don't think that's a difficult concept to understand.

[ckaihatsu]

There should be no doubts that Gideon Levy is a liberal zionist, but I think he nevertheless ends up focusing his ire on the fact that the Israeli state contradicts its democratic pretenses through its treatment of the Palestinians. One can be critical of the basic assumptions of his politics while recognizing his stances against settler violence and IDF violence against Palestinians.





We would probably just seem less like anachronistic cranks if we dropped this homage to ad hominem that is endemic on the left. It's kinda like getting our cocks out on the table and measuring whose is biggest - this whole calling someone a 'liberal' just to sort of satisfy yourself that you're a purer sort of revolutionary than someone else.


It's not a trivial distinction to make, though, because of *political priorities* -- liberals are *reformists*, and put their main efforts behind attempts to make puddle-depth changes in how exploitation and oppression are administered.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

We would probably just seem less like anachronistic cranks if we dropped this homage to ad hominem that is endemic on the left. It's kinda like getting our cocks out on the table and measuring whose is biggest - this whole calling someone a 'liberal' just to sort of satisfy yourself that you're a purer sort of revolutionary than someone else.

Engaging with the content of the article, it is clear that Levy is talking of a "more just" country in the past, probably before the two intifadas, the actions in 2012 and currently, rather than an actually "just" country. I don't think that's a difficult concept to understand.

I think my point was that we can engage with Gideon Levy even if he is a liberal zionist (a designation I don't think he would disagree with, from what I understand). And we can engage with him without endorsing his ultimate vision. Ultimately, he won't have the same kind of solutions, but we can recognize that he sees the same kinds of problems.

[Revolver]

Racism is disgusting whether or not it is on the part of an oppressor or an oppressed people. We shouldn't give groups like Hamas a pass when they celebrate antisemitic bullshit like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion just because the Palestinians are oppressed. This is even more the case when the reactionary, bigoted views of the representatives of the oppressed become utilized by the oppressor as "proof" of the legitimacy of oppression. The cleansing of Palestinian lands and anti-Jewish Arab riots are both problematic, and being critical of one and not the other merely creates space for a new oppressor to emerge.


Surely you are not equating a clunky statement like "the U.S. and Germany will continue to dance to Israels tune" with giving "groups like Hamas a pass when they celebrate...the Protocols of the Elders of Zion just because the Palestinians are oppressed"? Because that would be completely ridiculous. Actually, your entire analysis here is odd, and surprising in light of what I have read from you before. Do you really think that refusing to read the darkest anti-Semitic meaning behind any comment that suggests Israel has undue influence on US foreign policy is equivalent to giving Hamas a pass for its anti-Semitism? It is not. And there is only one faction that benefits from that false equivalency.

Or perhaps you read something into the comment that wasn't there, as you are apparently accustomed to the "both sides" line on the question of Jewish nationalism and Palestinian privation. Let me be clear: If there were actual anti-Jewish pogroms in Arab nations (the only place that comes to mind in the Middle East outside of Israel as a possible if improbable candidate is Persian in any event), then I would of course condemn them. I don't approve of extrajudicial murder of teenage settlers either, although I do insist that it be contextualized for Americans who have been fed a steady diet of self-serving victimization by the likes of Bibi. But those murders were not anti-Jewish pogroms. We do not live in an era of anti-Jewish pogroms, but an era of Jewish nationalist oppression of Palestinian Arabs (and others).

Nor are all forms of racism equally disgusting or dangerous. The murders of those teenagers were horrible, to be sure, but they must also be contextualized: those boys were kidnapped in an illegal settlement, they all come from rather religious Zionist backgrounds and their murders were clearly exploited by the Israeli regime as a pretext for whipping up popular support and attacking the new unity government. Max Blumenthal (http://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahu-government-knew-teens-were-dead-it-whipped-racist-frenzy/13533) has an excellent article about this over at Electronic Intifada. As he points out near the end of the article while noting the irony of Netanyahu's manipulative political use of a poem about a pogrom in prewar Europe, modern Israelis are the aggressors here, not the victims.

Now yes we know that race and nationalism are tools used to create divisions within the working class, but we would never dream of suggesting that the Pieds Noires and the Afrikaners were victims of racism in the way that the people they ruled over were. The fact that Jews were oppressed in Europe does not change this fact; after all, the Boers were the first victims of concentration camps.

I also think you need to step back and assess whether insisting upon this false equivalency is creating space for the current oppressors to emerge victorious. Pointing out the imbalance of power is not embracing Hamas or other forms of right wing extremism, but that is precisely the mental association that the domestic and international lobbies for US foreign policy in Israel and the Middle East hope to do.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think my point was that we can engage with Gideon Levy even if he is a liberal zionist (a designation I don't think he would disagree with, from what I understand).

Yes I know, but the point i'm making is that when you say things like that, what makes you think anybody will engage with you?

I don't mean that in a personal 'you' way, I mean to attack the way in which it seems the way of the 'left' to always qualify their support for something or someone by pointing out inadequacies either through an ad hominem attack, or some miniscule programmatic difference.

I find it a bit pathetic, off-putting and tribal, and I would say that i'm far from the only person to share this view.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Surely you are not equating a clunky statement like "the U.S. and Germany will continue to dance to Israels tune" with giving "groups like Hamas a pass when they celebrate...the Protocols of the Elders of Zion just because the Palestinians are oppressed"? Because that would be completely ridiculous. Actually, your entire analysis here is odd, and surprising in light of what I have read from you before. Do you really think that refusing to read the darkest anti-Semitic meaning behind any comment that suggests Israel has undue influence on US foreign policy is equivalent to giving Hamas a pass for its anti-Semitism? It is not. And there is only one faction that benefits from that false equivalency.


I don't think those statements are equivalent, no, but I am speaking to the general possibility of reactionary ideologies endorsed by the oppressed. This could stem from mundane "Israelis (i.e Jews who happen to live in Israel) have undue influence in various world governments" (which, to be fair, wasn't said, but is the implication of saying the US and EU countries are manipulated by Israel in some kind of uniquely nefarious way) to the more extreme case of saying "Jews actually run the world and we have the minutes of their meetings to prove it". I think well-intentioned people can take these narratives on naively, which is why it is important to criticize comrades when they slip into them.



Or perhaps you read something into the comment that wasn't there, as you are apparently accustomed to the "both sides" line on the question of Jewish nationalism and Palestinian privation. Let me be clear: If there were actual anti-Jewish pogroms in Arab nations (the only place that comes to mind in the Middle East outside of Israel as a possible if improbable candidate is Persian in any event), then I would of course condemn them. I don't approve of extrajudicial murder of teenage settlers either, although I do insist that it be contextualized for Americans who have been fed a steady diet of self-serving victimization by the likes of Bibi. But those murders were not anti-Jewish pogroms. We do not live in an era of anti-Jewish pogroms, but an era of Jewish nationalist oppression of Palestinian Arabs (and others).
There certainly were anti-Jewish pogroms in the 40s and 50s, which is why there are so many Arab Jews in Israel, and so few Arab Jews anywhere else anymore. This fact is then used perniciously by the Israeli state to legitimize itself as the "protector" of these people. Considering the number of attacks instigated by the Israel-Palestine conflict that target Jewish institutions in particular as opposed to just Israeli state targets, I don't think it's an unfair fear on the part of Arab Jews that they would still face significant discrimination were they to still live in Cairo or Baghdad and disassociate from Israel altogether.



Nor are all forms of racism equally disgusting or dangerous. The murders of those teenagers were horrible, to be sure, but they must also be contextualized: those boys were kidnapped in an illegal settlement, they all come from rather religious Zionist backgrounds and their murders were clearly exploited by the Israeli regime as a pretext for whipping up popular support and attacking the new unity government. Max Blumenthal (http://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahu-government-knew-teens-were-dead-it-whipped-racist-frenzy/13533) has an excellent article about this over at Electronic Intifada. As he points out near the end of the article while noting the irony of Netanyahu's manipulative political use of a poem about a pogrom in prewar Europe, modern Israelis are the aggressors here, not the victims.
Well, for one thing, while the settlements as a state project break international law and deprive Palestinians of a great deal of their economic capacity and personal freedom (as well as requiring the appropriation of their land and water), I don't think being the child of a settler is a crime in itself, and the solution to the problem of the settlements won't come from ethnically cleansing the West Bank of its Jewish settlers. It just gives too much credibility to the nationalist view that the two people fundamentally cannot live together. As much as anything else the consequence of murdering the 3 students did nothing to undermine institutionalized oppression, and just created a great opportunity for the militarists in Israel. I think we both agree that the violence should be contextualized but that certain acts of violence from both sides can be unjustified, so perhaps there is no actual disagreement here.

Clearly the deaths of the 3 youths have been used by Bibi for political ends as you said. Arguing otherwise would be absurd.



Now yes we know that race and nationalism are tools used to create divisions within the working class, but we would never dream of suggesting that the Pieds Noires and the Afrikaners were victims of racism in the way that the people they ruled over were. The fact that Jews were oppressed in Europe does not change this fact; after all, the Boers were the first victims of concentration camps.

I also think you need to step back and assess whether insisting upon this false equivalency is creating space for the current oppressors to emerge victorious. Pointing out the imbalance of power is not embracing Hamas or other forms of right wing extremism, but that is precisely the mental association that the domestic and international lobbies for US foreign policy in Israel and the Middle East hope to do.I don't think there is a "false equivalency" at all. The colonized and the colonizers are obviously not meeting on an equal fighting ground.


Yes I know, but the point i'm making is that when you say things like that, what makes you think anybody will engage with you?

I don't mean that in a personal 'you' way, I mean to attack the way in which it seems the way of the 'left' to always qualify their support for something or someone by pointing out inadequacies either through an ad hominem attack, or some miniscule programmatic difference.

I find it a bit pathetic, off-putting and tribal, and I would say that i'm far from the only person to share this view.

I agree with you, I think I was just trying to argue it from another angle - perhaps because my interlocutor was a Marxist.

Incidentally I think this kind of discourse comes from Marx and Engels themselves. They were just more sophisticated when they did it.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Incidentally I think this kind of discourse comes from Marx and Engels themselves. They were just more sophisticated when they did it.

Marx (moreso than Engels) came across as an asshole. Or at least somewhat obstreperous and irritating from time to time. Which is fine when you're writing in the midst of 1848, and probably also fine when your writings are being read in the aftermath of WW1, 1917, the spartacist uprising etc.

But I think it's a really issue that Marxist discourse has become so conservative and even reactionary. Culturally we have a need to embrace a more progressive discourse that is more accessible, relevant and up-to-date than the traditions of 100-150 years ago that the 'left' seems to hold onto so dearly.