Gideon Levy on the dehumanization of Palestinians by Israelis

By the end of the day, how many Israelis did ever try, for a moment, to put themselves in the place of the Palestinians, for a moment, for one day?  And I want to give you two examples which will demonstrate it.

Many years ago, I interviewed then candidate for Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.  And I asked him a question which I try to ask in any occasion: "Mr. Barak, what would have happened if you would have been born Palestinian?"  And Barak gave me the only honest answer he could give me.  He said "I would have joined the terror organization."  What else would he have done?  Would he become a poet?  He doesn't know to write poems.  Would he become a pianist?  He's quite a bad pianist and I doubt he would have become a collaborator because he is a fighter.  And it became a scandal because how can you dare to put Ehud Barak to think what would have happened if he would have become a Palestinian.

And the second incident briefly: second intifada, the city of Jenin, the most closed city in the West Bank, real, total seige.  I go out from Jenin, I come to the checkpoint, Palestinian ambulances parking there with the red lights.  I stand after him.  No cars can get out of Jenin in those days, no cars can get out, and I wait.  The soldiers are playing backgammon in the tent.  Usually, I know, I know myself, it's better that I don't get into confrontation with the soldiers because it always ends up very badly.  So I stayed in the car.

But after 40 minutes, I couldn't take it.  And I went out from the car, I went first to the Palestinian ambulance driver and I asked him, "What's going on?"  He told me, "That's the routine.  They let me wait one hour until they come and check the ambulance."  And I couldn't take it anymore and I went to the soldiers.  It became a confrontation.  But the question that I asked them which really brought them to direct their weapons toward me was one: "What would have happened if your father would have been lying in this ambulance?"  This freaked them out.  They lost control.  How can I dare to compare between their father and the Palestinian in the ambulance?  And this set of beliefs, that they are not human beings like us, enable us - Israelis - to live in so much peace with those crimes, ongoing crimes, for so many years, with losing any kind of humanity, values.

I heard today, people talk about Jewish values.  I must be frank with you, I don't know what are Jewish values.  I know what are universal values.

~ Gideon Levy, "How Israelis Live So Easily With Occupation," Saad Tasleem, 3:35 mark, November 7, 2023