Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

The following exchange between Haim Yavin and Gideon Levy occurs in the documentary “Did You See a Green Line?”, the first of the five films in Yavin’s series “The Land of the Settlers: A Journey Log” (Tel Aviv: Telad Rony Production, distributed in the US by Americans for Peace Now). This is my rough transcript based on the English subtitles–which are imperfect. It does not convey the intense outrage we hear in Levy’s voice and see on his face in the film. But it should be enough to explain why many people respect him as much as I do.

[We see Gideon Levy going up stairs in a bombed building with a notebook under his arm]

Yavin: Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy considers his job a calling. I accompany him to one of the demolished buildings near the Muqata while he’s preparing his weekly newspaper column. Few people read his reports, perhaps because of the indifference that wore off on all of us or perhaps in response to his identifying with the Palestinians.

Yavin to Levy: Why don’t you mention the atrocities they do to us?

Levy: You want to know why? Because some things simply aren’t done. Period. Without “however” or “but.” And we do things in the Territories that shouldn’t be done. Period. And all the context and relevance…. They always say I take things out of context…. It’s not relevant. Because some things simply aren’t done. And we do things that shouldn’t be done.

Yavin: But you disregard the connection.

Levy: I don’t disregard the connection. I’m telling you [pause] that part of the connection was born right here in this rubble. And some of the terror was born here. You see? Amidst these stones. Children who see and grow up with these stones are the future suicide bombers.

Yavin: I don’t understand it Gideon. I don’t understand it. Only you are righteous? Only you have a conscience? Only you walk around the Occupied Territories? There’s an equation here that says: Wait a minute, the man is detached from his own people and he only sees the suffering of the Palestinians.

Levy: I’m here because I’m an Israeli patriot who doesn’t write about the Palestinian suffering. Absolutely not. That’s a mistake. I don’t write about Palestinian suffering. I write about the Israeli occupation, about what we do to them. But since we, with our own hands, in our name, cause this atrocity, and I have no other word for it except “atrocity”….

Yavin: Aren’t you exaggerating?

Levy: I’m not exaggerating. I think the IDF is exaggerating. Israel is exaggerating.

Yavin: When you say “atrocity”….

Levy: That’s the word.

Yavin: What do you mean exactly? Be concrete.

Levy: Concrete?

Yavin: Because it’s easy to throw a word in the air.

Levy: Easy?

Yavin: What atrocity?

Levy: By the way, I wouldn’t have used the word “atrocity” five years ago. I never used those words. And I wouldn’t have said “war crime” so easily five years ago. My pen would quiver before I would write it. But today, 3.5 years after we imprison an entire nation, an entire nation cannot live a normal life for a single day, an iota of a normal life, that has to ask permission to give birth in a hospital. That has to ask permission to meet a friend. That has to ask permission to get to a funeral. A nation caged for the sole purpose of being caged. There’s no connection between these checkpoints and security. No connection.

Yavin: We’re at war.

Levy: We’re at war? Against whom? Against the entire Palestinian nation?

I hope this story is inaccurate. Levy, Hass,  Rapaport, and Eldar are great journalists.

PURGE AT HaARETZ NEWS :: www.uruknet.info, June  1, 2008

A new German owner has purchased Haaretz and a “Putsch is being carried out among reporting staff,” in the most important and liberal Zionist paper in Israel. According to inside sources, the new owner has carried out a rough, sittingroom survey that revealed that “the occupation doesn’t sell newspapers” and they are therefore concentrating on the business world ie. The Marker. Twilight Zone, Gideon Levy’s regular Friday column, has been scrapped, Amira Hass has been degraded to freelance on half salary, Meron Rapaport has been fired and Akiva Eldar has lost at least one half page a week.