Saturday 16 December 2017

“Soon, even the notion that Israel is democratic for Jews will be gone.”--Gideon Levy

“Soon, even the notion that Israel is democratic for Jews will be gone.”
Gideon Levy at Mt Eden War Memorial Hall, Dominion Road
Sunday 3 December 2017, 3 p.m. (Part 2 of 2)
Questions from the floor.
Question No. 1: The international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel: is it working?
GIDEON LEVY: Boycott is a legitimate strategy. Israel is forever pressing countries to boycott Iran and Hamas. People boycott butchers, and refuse to buy goods made in sweatshops. No one can claim that boycott is wrong. Many people won’t buy stolen goods—and anything made in the Occupied Territories is a stolen product. Boycott and sanction were very effective strategies against the South African apartheid state. The aggression towards BDS by the Jewish establishment convinces me that it’s the right tool. Psychologically, it’s having an increasing impact. There have been bills to criminalize BDS in the United States and Europe. This is unacceptable. It shows how weak the Israeli argument is if they have to prosecute people of conscience who want to boycott Israel. By the way, I am violating Israeli law right now—it’s going to be seven years’ jail for expressing support for BDS. We need to make Israel, and every Israeli, accountable. 
Question No. 2: Are you tired and defeated in your attitude to the two-state solution?
GIDEON LEVY: You need to prove that the two-state solution is viable, and show how to evacuate the 700,000 settlers. Soon that number will be one million. Whenever I mention President Trump, people start to laugh—(LAUGHTER). Trump said, “I don’t mind whether it’s one state or two states.” I don’t think he knew what he was talking about.
Question No. 3: New Zealand is in the throes of privatization brought about by social engineering. The incarceration rate in New Zealand—-
(At this point the questioner was cut off, for allegedly being off topic. I think Gideon was going to answer him, but the organisers insisted on moving things along to the next question.)
Question No. 4: How can we learn from the Maori?
GIDEON LEVY: I visited South Africa three times, and tremendous things happened there. This inspires me: the one state solution can be implemented. If New Zealanders can live together, we can live together with the Palestinians. —(APPLAUSE)— There will still be struggles about rights, et cetera, but it can be done.
Question No. 5: Gideon, you’ve been called “the most hated man in Israel.” Do you suffer from Shin Bet surveillance, in the way that Donald Woods was spied on in South Africa?
GIDEON LEVY: It was the Independent that called me the most hated man in Israel. However, I am not the story. Yes, there have been some physical attacks. But we are still a liberal democracy for Jewish citizens. I was arrested once for entering the West Bank. My car was shot once, and we counted nine bullet marks. It was an armor-plated car, however. The Israeli regime is aiming now at NGOs and the Supreme Court. Their next target will be the media.
Question No. 6: What can you tell us about the Knesset bill to ban the police filing corruption charges against any government officials?
GIDEON LEVY: There are many cracks in Israel’s democracy, in particular that bill. There are many anti-democratic bills in the Israeli parliament now. Soon, even the notion that Israel is democratic for Jews will be gone. However, it still survives for the moment, and I enjoy full freedom to speak and write.
Question No. 7: What are the common or distinctive values in the Jewish and Palestinian cultures?
GIDEON LEVY: There is no “Jewish morality”, there are universal values. Very clearly, most of us are secular. I don’t know what it means to follow Jewish values. I do know what it means to follow ethics and morality, which are universal.  
Question No. 8: Israel, like New Zealand, is a settler state. The natives have been stripped of possession of the land. Maori attitudes to land are very different to english values. How can we have equal rights?
GIDEON LEVY: In New Zealand you discuss the past. In Israel, bringing up the past is tantamount to treason. The nakba was a war crime; I could live at peace with it if it had stopped there. But it never stopped. The same attitudes, the same tools, have continued. We should expect Israel to admit, and compensate, the crimes of 1948. But we don’t let it be discussed. We don’t let the Palestinians put up a sign for one of the more than four hundred villages destroyed. The first step is to ADMIT the crime of 1948.
Question No. 9: You say you do what you do because you care about Israel. Should we change the name of Israel? What about the right of return of the expelled Palestinians?
GIDEON LEVY: I care about Israel having a different regime from the present one, which is not a democracy. Let’s be quite clear about this: I stand for a tiny minority in Israel. The right of return? Sure. A democratic country would let those people in. No right of return is a racist law.
Question No. 10: Who are the main enemies of Israel?
GIDEON LEVY: Those who support the occupation, who keep it strong, and who pay for it. Of course I’m talking about the United States here. The U.S. could stop this masquerade in a matter of months. The U.S. routinely condemns the illegal settlements and scolds Israel, but it does nothing. The European Union: nothing but lip service. India, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E.—they all buy Israeli weapons.
Question No. 11: What about the liberal opposition in Israel?
GIDEON LEVY: Nothing is more misleading than the belief that Netanyahu is the only problem. Labour is the founding father of the settlements. I would rather have the right wingers in power, because at least they are honest. If Labour gets into power, it will meet with Abbas. The world will applaud. Negotiations in special committees will go on for one and a half years. The negotiations will go nowhere. Like Oslo. Everyone will support Israel—“what a peaceful state!” At least with Netanyahu, what you see is what you get.
Question No. 12: Are you optimistic about the peace and justice movements in Israel?
GIDEON LEVY: Yes, there are indeed groups like Breaking the Silence, B’tselem, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and Physicians for Human Rights. But they face a fatal problem: delegitimization by the government and the media. The government is fighting Breaking the Silence like hell. When it began, I thought Breaking the Silence would be a game-changer. These were Israeli soldiers witnessing and testifying about what they had done in the Occupied Territories and Gaza. There were more than one thousand testimonies. I thought that Israeli society would not be able to continue to deny. But immediately the political establishment and the media collaborated to crush them. Their influence and credibility in Israel is zero. They have been made into criminals in public opinion. The machinery of the Israeli state crushed them. Most young Israelis are much more nationalistic and right wing than their parents. And social media has made the most extreme racism socially acceptable.
Question No. 13: What about the “Christian Zionists”?
GIDEON LEVY: In terms of brainwashing and ignorance they are even worse. They turn very easily into anti-Semites. Right now they support Israel blindly and automatically; they are the biggest enemies of Israel.
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This melancholy yet inspirational and uplifting question time finished with a representative from the Unite union delivering the parting words of thanks to Gideon, and reminding all present of the need to press our new Labour government to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. An Irishmen, he recounted how in 1880, County Mayo residents refused to cooperate in any way with the local agent of the absentee Lord Erne. They withdrew their labour completely and refused to talk to him or engage with him in any way, resulting in his leaving Ireland in December 1880. The agent’s name: Captain Charles Boycott.

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