It’s been a while since I’ve posted an article by Gideon Levy. Here he muses on a comment, by Gideon Ezra MK (who happens to have lived in the same town I did for many years).
“We are all racists. Like it or not, we live in a reality of national, not to say racist, separation. A fusion of genuine security distress, the appalling terrorist attacks in the cities, the moral scars we bear as a result of decades of occupation and the faulty education we received has created a day-to-day reality here that can only shock anyone who believes in human rights.”
The first time I visited Israel was right after high school many, many years ago! One Saturday night I came to spend several hours on a truck with an Israeli from a religious kibbutz, delivering fruits and vegetables. That was the night I came to love Israel and decided to live there. In the course of our conversation, this kibbutznick told us that Israeli Jews do not hate the Arabs and all they want is to live in peace. This was in 1971, and I believe, for the most part, that was true at the time.
But somewhere over the years Israeli society took a very wrong turn. Land and possession became more important than human values. I would have to say, that nowadays the vast majority of Israeli Jews are tribalists of the worst sort (and the same can be said of the Palestinians, for that matter). This change is the root of the disaster that Israel faces today, and the underlying reason I no longer want to live there.
