I’m not generally given to admiring people. Those that I do are few and far between. But starting October 2023, when Israel’s deliberately planned and inexorably executed genocide in Gaza began, there’s one man who’s risen immeasurably in my estimation. Before I tell you who he is, let me describe him.
He’s often called the conscience of Israel. To tell the truth there are very few others who have the strength of conviction and courage to criticise their country even when it’s at war.
I’m referring to the international award winning Haaretz columnist and author Gideon Levy. I got to know him when I telephoned to ask for an interview. He readily agreed.
On that very first occasion he described Israel as a racist and apartheid country.
I never thought I would hear any Israeli speak so brutally honestly.
Mr Levy, as I call him, is a searing critic of the Israeli people’s lack of conscience about their treatment of Palestinians, including the two million who are citizens of the country.
He also excoriates the media. Because it wants to entertain and not inform, it’s chosen to ignore the devastation Benjamin Netanyahu has wrought upon Gaza. And he’s unforgiving about his prime minister. He calls his government fascist.
Last week, I spoke to Mr Levy about the war Israel and America have inflicted upon Iran, and the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei.
Iran is not an existential threat to Israel, he firmly asserted. And there are other better ways of responding to whatever challenge it poses.
The fact that Iran has been chanting death to Israel for four decades and calls it Little Satan, in comparison to America’s Great Satan, is irrelevant, he says.
In that interview he told me: “Words are not enough to make an existential threat. This does not mean that the threats from Iran shouldn’t have been taken seriously and they were taken seriously. But as long as Iran does not possess nuclear capabilities, and it does not, there was not a real immediate existential threat. No one can claim that Iran was an existential threat.”
When it came to the Ayatollah, he said we need to be honest and call it murder. He was deeply dismayed that 93% of Israelis support this cold-blooded killing — those are North Korean figures, he added — and assert they’re proud of it. And, remember, he said this when Iranian missiles and drones are raining down on Tel Aviv and he has to dash to shelters seven or eight times a day.
“I don’t believe in any moral murders. Let’s call it by its name. Those are murders. If it would have been done by an organised crime gang, you would have called it murders, ordered murders, planned murders … Israel made it as a strategy. Israel in the last two years killed half of the leadership in the Middle East. I don’t want to be part of this.”
When I asked him if the Jewish belief that they are God’s chosen people leads the majority of Israelis to assume whatever they do is correct and that criticism of Israel is anti-semitism, his answer was brave and blunt. “Those values are under the skin of almost every Israeli that I know.”
And, this is how he described his countrymen’s attitude: “We are the chosen people and, therefore, we have the right to do things that other people don’t have the right. We are the chosen people and therefore international law, which is a very important institution, doesn’t apply to Israel because we are a special case. We are the biggest victims in history and that gives us special rights and privileges … we are better than anyone else.”
Then, tellingly, he added: “The rest of the world (is) anti-semite if it dares to criticise us. That’s another way to protect ourselves by blaming the critics … and you know what? It’s very effective. Many people in the West don’t dare to criticise Israel because they are scared to be labelled anti-semites.”
Now, tell me, how can you not admire such a man?
Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story. The views expressed are personal
