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Gideon Levy (Template:Lang-he; born 1953) is an Israeli journalist and editor for the Haaretz newspaper, and is an outspoken and controversial opponent of Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank. Levy's weekly column in Haaretz, "The Twilight Zone", deals with the politically and emotionally charged subject of the hardships of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, and their conflicts with the Israeli military and Jewish settlers. He has been called everything from "propagandist for the Hamas" to "this heroic journalist". He has won awards for defending human rights, and has been villified as a possible security risk by a former cabinet minister.

In addition to his work at Haaretz, Levy is a regular participant and a representative of the left-wing in a television panel on the TV show, "Moetzet Ha'Hahamim" (Trans. 'The Committee of the Wise'), and has published a book.

Biography

Levy was born in 1953 in Tel Aviv, the eldest of two sons to immigrants from Germany. The family settled in Shtand street in Tel Aviv and Levy went to the nearby "Public School Alef" (Template:Lang-he). In an article, Levy recounted that a shell that hit Tel Aviv during the Six-Day war hit a porch in the adjacent street, Reich. Levy shared a room with his younger brother, Rafi, and the two would sometimes share Hebrew poetry. Levy describes those songs, notably of Haim Hefer, as making a considerable impact on his life, shaping them and his spirits. Levy describes his adolescence as one in which he was "a full member of the nationalistic religious orgy". Citing a collective feeling of an "existentialistic danger," levy explains that everyone "felt that another holocaust is around the corner".

In 1974 he joined the Israeli Defense Forces becoming a writer and editor for the Israel Army Radio and was discharged in 1978. From 1978 to 1982 he served, together with Yossi Beilin, as an aide to Shimon Peres. In 1982 he began working for the Israeli daily Haaretz and in the years 1983–1987 he worked as the vice editor-in-chief. From 1986 has written extensively in its pages on 'the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and Palestinian life under that occupation'. Since 1988, Levy has been writing the "Twilight Zone" column, and as of March 2007, Levy brings—In Haaretz's "Section B"—personal stories of Palestinians who have been injured due to Israeli military operation in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Miki Kertzman provides images for the column.

In 2004, the book "Twilight Zone – Life and Death under the Israeli Occupation" was published, in which an assortment of Levy's published columns from the years 1988-2003. The book's intention was to follow the evolution of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from the years of the First Intifada trough the years of the Oslo Peace Accords and up to the Second Intifada and Operation Defensive Shield. He has also edited, alongside Haim Yavin, a documentary series, Whispering Ember (Template:Lang-he), which dealt with Russian Jewry after the fall of communism. Levy also hosted Personal meeting with Gideon Levy, a weekly talk show that was broadcast on Israeli cable TV on channel 3. The show was broadcast for nearly a decade since the early 1990s to the beginning of the 2000s.

In 1996 he Levy awarded the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. In 2008, he was awarded the Euro-Med Journalist Prize for Cultural Dialogue of the Anna Lindh Foundation, for his article "The Children of 5767" about Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces during the Hebrew year 5767.

Levy resides in Tel Aviv and is a divorced father of two.

Political views

Levy has said that his "modest mission is to prevent a situation in which many Israelis will be able to say, 'We didn't know'." He often criticizes what he describes as Israeli society's 'moral blindness' to the effects of its acts of war and occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. He has criticized Israel's government for refusing to stop the construction of settlements on private Palestinian land, describing the policy as 'the most criminal enterprise in history'.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, he shared the minority view among Israeli commentators which dismissed the idea that it was a 'just war', of the kind in which civilian casualties were both inevitable and acceptable.

While working in Gaza in early 2007 with a French film crew that was making a documentary about him, Levy declared on camera that the Gazans' plight made him ashamed to be an Israeli.

Levy supports unilateral cession of occupied Palestinian territories without asking for concessions, saying that "Israel is not being asked 'to give' anything to the Palestinians; it is only being asked to return - to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity." He further says that "There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice."

Levy wrote that the Gaza War was a complete failure for Israel, writing that none of the objectives of the war were achieved. Levy wrote that "The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law."

Levy is against an Israeli attack on Iran, writing that such an attack would end in disaster. Levy wrote that it is important "for Israel to finally wean itself of the ideology that force is a solution to everything, and that it is the policeman (aka thug) of the Middle East."

Reception

Levy's writing has raised considerable controversy. He won the Anna Lindh journalism prize in 2008, for promoting cultural dialogue, for an article he wrote about Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel awarded him the Emil Grunzweig award in 1996 for promoting human rights. He has been praised by Johann Hari of The Independent as "the heroic Israeli journalist", and his columns are cited often in the New York Times and other newspapers. The French newspaper Le Monde praised him as a 'thorn in Israel's flank' and Der Spiegel characterized him as " most radical commentator".

On the other hand, his opponents have criticized him for being anti-Israeli, and for supporting Palestinian radicalism. "Is it wrong to ask of reporters in a country that is in the midst of a difficult war to show a little more empathy for their people and their country?" asks Amnon Dankner of the moderate Maariv newspaper. Ben Dror Yemini, the editor of the opinion page of Maariv, calls Levy one of the "propagandists for the Hamas". Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, writes in the website of Arutz Sheva, a publication supporting the Israeli settlers in the West Bank, " the current Israeli heroes , from whom the Palestinians garner support for their ways, Gideon Levy ..." Arutz Sheva also reported extensively on an article of Levy's that was translated into Arabic on a Hamas website, ostensibly to justify two rampages by Palestinians driving bulldozers in Jerusalem in 2008. Gideon Ezra, a member of Parliament from the Kadima party, and former deputy Minister of Internal Security in Israel, even suggested in 2006 that the General Security Services should monitor Levy as a borderline security risk — a suggestion that drew angry responses from Israeli civil rights groups.

Israeli novelist Irit Linur set off a wave of subscription cancellations to the Haaretz newspaper, Levy's main publisher, when she wrote an open letter to the paper cancelling her own subscription. "It is a person's right to be a radical leftist, and publish a newspaper in accordance with his world view... However Haaretz has reached the point where its anti-Zionism has become stupid and evil," she wrote.". She also accused Levy of amateurism because he does not speak Arabic.

Other public figures followed suit in cancelling their subscriptions, including Roni Daniel, the military and security correspondent for Israeli Channel 2. Haaretz's publisher, Amos Schocken, expressed puzzlement at Linur's public letter, describing his newspaper as "exceedingly Zionist" and suggesting Levy's reports should be "read mainly as a description to the effect of the Israeli occupation in the territories". Levy himself joked that there is a thick file of anti-Levy cancellations in the Haaretz newsroom.

Publications

• "Twilight Zone - Life and Death under the Israeli Occupation. 1988-2003". Babylon Priniting 2004, Tel Aviv

References

1. ^ Yemini, Ben Dror (2009-01-17). "Conscience pimps - סרסורי מצפון" (in Hebrew). Ma'ariv. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
2. ^ the heroic Israeli journalist
3. אזור הדמדומים | 100 בהיסטוריה, by Gideon Levy.
4. לוי, גדעון (10/04/09). "בוא שיר עברי" (in Hebrew). Haaretz. Retrieved 30 January 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Text "שני שיבר ושליש ירכתיים" ignored (help)
5. ^ Six Day War prompts reflection in Middle East ABC, 11 June 2007
6. ^ "לקסיקון אנציקלופדי לתקשורת ועיתונות - גדעון לוי" (in Hebrew). העין השביעית. 26/02/2008. Retrieved 30 January 2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
   Translation:
   The ideological nature of Levy's journalist work, and especially the column "The Twilight Zone", often raised controversy. His critics claim that he blindly prefers the Palestinian version over the Israeli one, and that his covering lacks since he does not speak Arabic and thus depends on translators who are interested parties.
   Original:
   אופיה האידיאולוגי של עבודתו העיתונאית של לוי, ובמיוחד הטור "אזור הדמדומים", עורר מחלוקות תדיר. מבקריו טוענים כי הוא מעדיף באופן עיוור את הגרסה הפלסטינית על זו הישראלית, וכי סיקורו לוקה בחסר משום שהוא אינו מדבר ערבית ולכן תלוי במתורגמנים בעלי אינטרסים.
   Translation:
   On the otherhand it was argued that his work reflects with loyalty the hard reality on the Palestinian side, and that the harsh responses he is receiving derive from the portrait that is reflected from the mirror he places in front of the Israeli public.
   Original:
   מנגד נטען כי עבודתו משקפת בנאמנות את המציאות הקשה בצד הפלסטיני, וכי התגובות הקשות שלהן הוא זוכה נובעות מן הדיוקן הנשקף מן המראה שהוא מציב מול הציבור הישראלי.
7. ^ Gideon Lévy : une épine dans le flanc d'Israël Le Monde, 4 September 2006 Template:Fr icon
8. The Anna Lindh Foundation announcement of March 3, 2008. Levy's article is here.
9. What do you mean when you say 'no'? Haaretz, 18 November 2007
10. Ha'aretz, Israel's Liberal Beacon The Nation, 6 September 2007
11. Gideon Levy, ‘Demands of a thief,’ Haaretz 25/11/2007
12. Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel, Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 22/01/2009.
13. Israel should forget about bombing Iran Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 15/02/2009.
14. Gideon Levy wins Anna Lindh Journalistic Prize for his exceptional writings on the challanges of the region
15. http://www.acri.org.il/story.aspx?id=176 מקבלי אות זכויות האדם ע"ש אמיל גרינצוויג ז"ל]
16. see, for example, Eric Etheridge, "Morning Skim: Kinsley on Debt, Testing Obama, Israel’s Direction", February 20, 2009, or Thomas Friedman, "Wanted: An Arab Sharon", January 11, 2006
17. ^ Problems at Israel's Haaretz: A Newspaper Without a Country
18. Amnon Dankner, Maariv, May 1, 2002, quoted in Gaby Weiman, "Ten Dilemmas of Journalism in Days of Terror"
19. מרכוס, איתמר (6/5/2009). "גיבורי הפלסטינים: גדעון לוי, עמירה הס, ודני רובינשטיין" (in Hebrew). Arutz Sheva. Retrieved 2009-04-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
20. השראה לתעמולת חמאס: גדעון לוי
21. אירועי תקשורת Israel Democracy Institute Template:He icon
22. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=209509&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
23. ^ Irit Linur's letter (quotation) News First Class Template:He icon
    Translation: it is a person's right to be a radical leftist, and publish a newspaper in accordance with this world view... However Haaretz reached a stage where its anti-Zionism turns too frequently to silly and mean journalism. Original:
    זכותו של אדם להיות שמאלני-רדיקלי, ולהוציא עיתון בהתאם להשקפת עולמו... אבל "הארץ" הגיע לשלב בו האנטי-ציונות שלו הופכת לעתים קרובות מדי לעיתונות מטופשת ומרושעת.Translation: When Gideon Levy accuses Israel of turning Marwan Barghouti from a peace seeker to an impresario of suicide bombings, it is as logical an interpretation, just as the claim that the wave of attacks on the September 11 were a plot by the Mossad. In a private conversation with him, he told me one time that he would not travel a hundred meters to save the life of a settler, and it seems to me that his loves and hates have been long tainting his heart-rending reports from the occupied Palestinian territories. Original:
    כשגדעון לוי מאשים את ישראל בהפיכתו של מרואן ברגותי משוחר שלום לאמרגן פיגועי התאבדות, זו פרשנות הגיונית, ממש כמו הטענה שגל הפיגועים ב-11 בספטמבר הוא מזימה של המוסד. בשיחה פרטית איתו, אמר לי פעם שהוא לא היה נוסע מאה מטר כדי להציל את חייו של מתנחל, ונראה לי שאהבותיו ושנאותיו מכתימות כבר מזמן את דיווחיו הנוגעים ללב מהשטחים הפלשתינים הכבושים. Cite error: The named reference "IritLetter" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
24. שכניק, רז (2009-01-16). "עד מתי אוקטובר 65'" (in Hebrew). מוסף "7 לילות" של "ידיעות אחרונות". {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

External links

• Interview with Levy on PBS (2003)
• Selection of articles by Levy
• Gideon Levy's Official Lecturer Page
• An open letter to Gideon Levy By A.B. Yehoshua, Haaretz 16/01/2009
• An open response to A.B. Yehoshua By Gideon Levy

• Israeli Jews
• Israeli journalists
• Post-Zionists
• 1955 births
• Living people
• Writers on Zionism