Gideon Levy, he of Haaretz, spent half an hour talking to a psychoanalyst on television. It's in Hebrew, and since it's video, I don't think Google can translate it for you.
Levy comes across as reasonable, calm, reflective, and articulate. Well, he's a talented journalist, so the articulate part is what you'd expect.
He tells how proud he is to aggravate us. His motivation is plausible: he has set himself the task of ensuring that we're never able to say "we didn't know" about our relationship with the Palestinians. Since he thinks we're profoundly wrong in that relationship, his second goal is to aggravate us. He admits that's a goal, the aggravation, which he achieves by using ever more extreme language. Strangely, he also tells that he can't stand it when outsiders criticize us - pretty weird, bearing in mind how important a source he is for Israel's haters.
Honesty doesn't get mentioned. Careful evaluation of facts, either.
Yaakov, as you well know, the problem with Gideon Levy, Shlomo Sand, Finkelstein, etc., is that they see themselves as pushing forward nuanced, comprehensive views of the world.
ReplyDeleteTo our enemies, however, these fools' inner struggles and sophisticated nuance mean nothing - their only utility is to move the ball one step further against the Jews.
The pattern is so worn and tired it is perverse. Our enemies will agree with everything that someone like Gideon Levy says, except his final nuanced conclusion (you know, the part where he says that killing Jews is a bad idea), and they will lament that he didn't have the courage and boldness to take it to the next level. They, of course, will have such courage.
I'm not speaking of Gideon Levy in particular here. There is a large minority of Jews, many in America, who are so confused about their identity. I grew up in the Soviet Union, not knowing anything about Jews except that I was one, and that was enough. We had our Yevsektziya, to be sure, but they were despised.
Just as I get depressed about it, however, my fellow Jews surprise me. I remember the polling that came out after Cast Lead was launched, when 94% of Israeli Jews supported the operation. 94%! I didn't expect that. How sick is that on my part, that I expected less...
Why doesn’t he stick to Hebrew if he’s so concerned about what outsiders say? It seems to me he and many others on the left go out of their way to ensure that it is not a private conversation. Akiva Eldar, himself, was recently promoting his new book on Charlie Rose.
ReplyDeleteIt seems much harder to find English translations of journalists like Ben Dror Yemini, who appears to have some interesting things to say on his new blog. That’s if google isn’t leading me too far astray.
As for the Levy interview, am I hearing אני רוצה at about the 2:00 mark?
At this rate, google is likely to figure out how to translate newscasts before I can learn to understand even a moderately paced conversation.
As an individual, I feel sorry for Gideon Levy. Going in and out of chem otherapy since age 18 must have been so rough he had to take it on a whole country.
ReplyDeleteWhat is vertain i9s that he lacks moral values, given the contempt with which he has treated the women in his life.
A vile, contemptuous man writing, appropriately, for what for the most part is a vile, contemptuous newspaper.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, he and his vile fellows must be thanked (even if reluctantly) for the huge part they have played in enabling many Israelis understand the profound disconnect between left-wing fantasies and reality---at least, the reality that Israel's partners in peace have been
trying to inculcate.
Levy's (et al.'s) contributions to opening the eyes of the nation are immeasurable, and one must give credit where credit is due.
Gideon Levy, a Far Leftist extremist, is pathologically sick. He never sees any good in Israel. He doesn't appear to love his country much. Levy is in fact the living definition of the "post Zionist" Israeli.
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