Joining us from Tel Aviv, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy argues that Middle East peace will never come until the Israeli government drops its rejection of basic Palestinian rights. “Sure Israel wants peace, Israel just doesn’t want a just peace,” Levy says. “It is all about justice. You look backward and you ask yourself in which stage, in which moment, was Israel willing to give up the occupation? Give me one example in which there was a genuine readiness to put an end to the occupation. It was never there. It was all about gaining time and maintaining the status quo — namely the West Bank occupied, Gaza under siege, peaceful life in Israel. … If you want the ultimate proof for it, it’s the [West Bank] settlements. Israel never stopped building settlements, and [in doing so] says to the Palestinians and the world, [we] have no intention to give up this piece of land.” Levy also discusses why he has received threats after calling on Israeli Air Force pilots to refuse to bomb Gaza, and why he sees a potential Palestinian effort to take Israel to the International Criminal Court as a positive step.


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Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. Levy joined Haaretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper's deputy editor. He is the author of the weekly Twilight Zone feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper. Levy was the recipient of the Euro-Med Journalist Prize for 2008; the Leipzig Freedom Prize in 2001; the Israeli Journalists’ Union Prize in 1997; and The Association of Human Rights in Israel Award for 1996. His new book, The Punishment of Gaza, has just been published by Verso Publishing House in London and New York.

1 Comment

  1. Sanda Aronson on

    I thought the segment was good. My first piece of art on my Flickr public photostream page was of the 2008/2009 Israeli attack on Gaza; it is on the bottom of the page, as Flickr posts the newest at top of page. There are now 39 pieces of art. The first one lists three cities: Guernica, Warsaw, Fallujah and the occupied territory, Gaza. I hope that I did not do a Kassand_a and foresee the wipe out of Gaza when I did the piece, completed on Jan. 3, 2009.

    I have done a new piece last week about the attack on Gaza, “#1 BULLY – U.S., SUPPORTS #2 BULLY -ISRAEL” and includes “Like sitting ducks” and “collective punishment” and a gold Star of David that I put on the toy plastic airplane as symbol.
    http://www.Flickr.com/photos/sanda-aronson-the-artist/

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