Gideon Levy’s challenge: what’s untrue in Amnesty’s report?
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
In this incandescent opinion piece for Ha’aretz, veteran reporter Gideon Levy throws down the gauntlet to his fellow Israelis of all Zionist persuasions.
You hate the Amnesty report on Israel’s apartheid, he says?
Why? Show me precisely where it is wrong.
It is everything we know but condensed, says, Levy, everything we know but deny.
We scream antisemitism instead of answering the criticisms.
Because we can’t. Because they are true.
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Thu 3 Feb 2022. Read the original here.
Tell Me What’s Untrue in Amnesty’s Report on Israel
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Gideon Levy is spot on, as always, but…
How do we get the main stream media in the UK to even acknowledge that Amnesty has produced an honest, detailed fact-based report? The smears of antisemistism are alreadty there and where the MSM are nervous about s,earing such a respect organisation they’ll just headline that Isareal calls it antisemitic.
Are there any left wingers left in the Labour party willing to make an issue of this (and probably get expelled)? We need to give this report as much publicity as we can.
“Israel is the greatest motivator of antisemitic urges in the world today.” This quotation exemplifies what has been my fear all along, why should Jewish people suffer because of a minority in power.
I disagree with the unprovable last sentence. Undoubtedly, Israel’s actions which it claims are as the world’s only Jewish state and in the name of all Jews, cause dislike, hatred and sometimes generalised antisemitism. Is this the greatest motivator of antisemitism in the world? Would antisemitism vanish if Israel transformed to a model of equality? Are the antisemitic actions or words of right wing governments, demagogues and far-right and white supremacist groups because of Israel? On the contrary, many of them have strong relations with Israel and support Zionism (a) to get rid of the Jews from “their” countries (b) as a perceived anti-Muslim state and (c) as a model for ethnic supremacist states. That’s why they fly Israeli flags. It’s much more complicated than Mr Levy implies. But then he is a liberal Zionist, writing in a paper with the same slant, however much good reporting is found there.
Good job Gideon Levy is a citizen of Israel and not of the UK.
Good job he’s not in the Labour Party.
Good job he’s not an academic in a British University.
Good job he won’t be invited to make these points on the BBC.
Good job he doesn’t write for a British newspaper.
Good job he’s never attended a meeting where someone who once knew someone who had once sat close to someone who was thought to have said…
This accusation breaks the IHRA Definition.
It’s good to see an article like this, not only because it’s completely accurate, but because one of my strongest impressions when I went to see for myself was that I was a lot more knowledgeable about what was happening in the occupied territories than the majority of Israelis.
While there is limited direct censorship of the media, it’s not actually necessary because they almost all practice self-censorship, which enables most Israelis to carry on believeing that they are being uniquely persecuted.
They – and Jews in the diaspora – need to understand that they can’t use the Holocaust as a permanent excuse for everything and that if Israel behaves like white South Africa, it will eventually be treated like white South Africa. And before anyone accuses me of antisemitism, yes, I am Jewish!
on a weekly basis send the best article to Labour List, if they don’t publish appeal to funders, not least Unite the union
Succinct like always but the era of Jim Crow has not gone from the US. The sundown towns James Loewen says still exist. The blacks continue to live in the basement of human society. America Fanon says has substituted lynching with discrimination. Floyd’s murder, which gained limelight is the latest example. Any settler colonial society is condemned to follow the pattern and has to look to the slaughterhouse and as Adorno succinctly pointed out, “say they are animals”. Anyway my salute to your critical analysis. You are my favourite columnist as Ilan Pappe and Hobsbawm are my favourite historians.
Reading the comments above I agree with Mike Scott in all he says but would draw a thread from this, to me one of the most irrational parts of the treatment of the Palestinians, are not at least some of the Palestinians also Semites in origin, notwithstanding that do we not all come out of Africa? As to Paul L Seligman the answer to his question “Would antisemitism vanish if Israel transformed to a model of equality? ” My answer is yes, a resounding yes.
This is a devastating critique by an honorable Israeli journalist who has spent his life speaking truth to Israeli power. Israel will pay a heavy price for its many crimes against the Palestinian people and failing to listen to its prophets prominent among which is Gideon Levy
It gives me no pleasure at all to publicly criticise the Israeli Government for their illegal actions and racist policies – other than the satisfaction that I have carried out what I perceive to be my moral duty. “Jews have a right to self-determination” I commonly read – and who could deny that? But Palestinians, too, have a right to self-determination and that right is consistently and institutionally denied them – by Israeli Government policies. This Apartheid regime must be brought to an end.
This is very thoughtful and rebalances the debates
Gideon Levy demonstrates cogently how apartheid is systematically embedded in Israeli settler-colonial society. He also underscores how the official Israeli response attempts to hide behind bogus claims of anti-Semitism and not unsurprisingly refuses to accept any accountability in the court of international opinion.
I wonder if Stephen Richards, who posts that “This accusation breaks the IHRA Definition” could help us by offering some explanation of his statement. OK, so it may well, by his own definition, break the IHRA’s, but for clarity and education, it would be helpful to know why, and how.
I wonder if we will ever see anyone who represents the Israeli Government reply to any of these questions, I seriously doubt they will.
I’ll post this and see if there is anyone out there, that’s a supporter of Israel, with their answers to any of the questions.
First B’Tselem, the HRW and now Amnesty have all called Israel an apartheid state. I don’t believe there is a single person working at any of those organisations who would deny any Jew their right to self determination, and yet Israel continues to cover up its own crimes under the tainted veil of antisemitism every time anyone calls them out for doing just that to their fellow countrymen and women. Two wrongs have never made a right, but Israel seems hell bent on disproving this age old proverb and is being helped in this endeavour by political entities and parties the world over who cower every time Israel waves the antisemitic flag. Politicians everywhere need to take the temperature of their electorates…the people are with the Palestinians and are becoming sick of the political hypocrisy exhibited by their elected representatives. As Gideon Lvey said in the Haaretz podcast, ‘If it looks like apartheid; if it behaves like apartheid; if it walks like apartheid; it is apartheid!