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00:00:30Good evening. This is a new edition of the show Outside the Box. More than two years have
00:00:33passed since the fateful October 7th, a date that etched itself into global consciousness
00:00:37as a point of complete moral and political
00:00:41breakdown. We are still trying to
00:00:43understand what actually happened, from the brutal,
00:00:46inexcusable attack by Hamas militants
00:00:50on Israeli civilians, to the retaliation which, in
00:00:53its scale, duration, and systematic nature, and which can
00:00:57be inferred from the conclusions of the International Commission
00:01:00of the United Nations, has taken on the contours of genocide against the population of Gaza. In
00:01:04that time span, measured not only in days, months,
00:01:08years, but in destroyed lives, ruined settlements and
00:01:11cities, the world watched as the lines between security
00:01:15and revenge blurred, and how international law is relativized
00:01:19and human dignity is turned into a collateral
00:01:23category. The two-state solution, which for decades
00:01:26figured as the only reasonable horizon, today appears
00:01:30both necessary and almost impossible. Necessary because
00:01:34without political and territorial equality, there is no
00:01:37minimal security for either Israelis or
00:01:40Palestinians. Impossible, because the facts on the ground,
00:01:43the colonization of the area by settlements and the spiral
00:01:46of violence make this idea more of a declaration than
00:01:50an implementable plan. Therefore, we ask if the two-state
00:01:53solution is just a mantra of diplomatic speakers or
00:01:57if it still exists as a realistic architecture of peace? Tonight,
00:02:00in the show Outside the Box, we deal with what is echoing louder and louder
00:02:04within Israeli society itself: how this time
00:02:07of war, destruction, and international condemnation is forming
00:02:11a new self-image in Israeli society. Has
00:02:14the moral price of retaliation become too heavy, even for a country that
00:02:18justifies its security policies with historical trauma,
00:02:22and is Benjamin Netanyahu's government, with the support of
00:02:25radical partners, responsible for the greatest
00:02:28strategic and ethnic catastrophe in recent Israeli
00:02:32history? While one part of society stands behind the government, the other part increasingly
00:02:35clearly states: this is not a path to security,
00:02:39but a path to moral destruction. Stay with
00:02:42us.
00:02:52The recently concluded ceasefire offers a respite, but does not remove
00:02:55fundamental questions, because, according to reports since its entry
00:02:59into force, hundreds of violations have been recorded, hundreds
00:03:02of dead and wounded. It is a ceasefire that is definitely
00:03:05not yet peace, but
00:03:08some transitional point on the horizon
00:03:11of uncertainty. Tonight, on the show Outside the Box, for the second time
00:03:15since the war began, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, one
00:03:19of the most provocative, most consistent, and to many,
00:03:23most controversial critics of Israeli policy towards
00:03:25Palestinians, an intellectual who refuses to agree to ideological
00:03:29reflexive reactions,
00:03:32who forces us to think outside
00:03:35national and ethnic narratives. His texts
00:03:39raise questions that many avoid. Tonight
00:03:42we will go through some. Good evening, Mr. Levy, thank you for
00:03:46speaking to
00:03:46N1.
00:03:51Good evening, thank you for inviting me.
00:03:55I listened to you recently and I must admit that
00:03:58the level of uh,
00:04:02how should I put it, moral self-incrimination that
00:04:05you express, especially when you say that all Israelis,
00:04:08including you, bear responsibility. What is it in
00:04:12Israeli society, media, and political culture, in
00:04:15your opinion, that allowed such collective blindness and
00:04:19denial to be normalized to such
00:04:23an extent that criticism in newspapers like yours
00:04:26is almost perceived as treason?
00:04:38It's interesting that you started with this question, it's a crucial
00:04:41question for us to understand
00:04:45how Israelis live
00:04:48peacefully with themselves, when just an hour
00:04:51away a disaster is unfolding. And
00:04:55I'm glad you mentioned the media, because
00:04:58the media is the answer to this. What happened in
00:05:01this
00:05:02war
00:05:09is that the Israeli media, without
00:05:13government pressure, did not
00:05:16report on the atrocities in
00:05:19Gaza, not because of ideology, but
00:05:22because they know that the Israeli public doesn't want to
00:05:25see it, and if viewers and readers don't
00:05:29want to see and hear it, then they won't
00:05:33show it. Apart from what I
00:05:36published in some smaller media, you couldn't
00:05:40see Gaza on television,
00:05:42on the news. What you watched in Israel
00:05:46was not watched. That's how
00:05:50people's brains were
00:05:53washed.
00:05:56It was reported in a way that showed that no atrocities were happening,
00:05:59that everything was in accordance with
00:06:03international law, that it was a defensive war,
00:06:06that 60, over
00:06:0960,000 people killed
00:06:12was a proportional
00:06:15uh reaction to October
00:06:187th, that
00:06:2120,000 killed children is also
00:06:25proportional and that they are part
00:06:28of the moral index that we
00:06:30in Israel invented for ourselves. All of this
00:06:33together created a situation in which
00:06:36Israel after October 7th
00:06:40does not want to watch, does not want to see Gaza, does not want to
00:06:43hear about Gaza, shows no empathy,
00:06:47no humanity towards that terrible
00:06:51catastrophe. Let's stay with
00:06:55the media. So, it seems that there is a sharp division
00:06:58between a few, but
00:07:01intellectually strong critical media like
00:07:03Haaretz and the mass media, these deeply
00:07:06entrenched media that reproduce the narrative
00:07:10of the government and the security establishment.
00:07:13How do you see the balance of power between these two
00:07:16universes of information? Do critical media
00:07:19even have the power to shape public opinion, or is their influence
00:07:23limited to intellectual enclaves
00:07:27that essentially rarely change the dominant political
00:07:30dynamic?
00:07:38I would say the latter.
00:07:43Haaretz
00:07:45is the oldest
00:07:48Israeli newspaper. It is published in Hebrew and English.
00:07:51It is well-established, but the mass
00:07:54media, there are many more of them than
00:07:58Haaretz, they are much more influential than
00:08:01Haaretz, both television channels
00:08:04and on social media, but also
00:08:07other print media.
00:08:10Haaretz tries, but cannot change
00:08:13the mainstream, and the mainstream brainwashes,
00:08:17goes with the flow, tells
00:08:20Israelis that there is no problem, that the whole
00:08:23world is anti-Semitic, everyone hates us,
00:08:27such things,
00:08:30which plays into the hands of Israelis, but has
00:08:33nothing to do with reporting.
00:08:36Hmm.
00:08:39Uh, when I simply listen to you on... I can ask you
00:08:43what comes to my mind as a logical
00:08:47question, and it concerns precisely those claims about the almost
00:08:50unanimous stance among Israeli residents. Still,
00:08:54allow me to mention that strong peace bloc, organizations
00:08:58like B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and others who
00:09:02believe in and advocate a two-state solution, but do not
00:09:06see a convincing peace partner in Hamas or parts of the Palestinian
00:09:09power structures. What about them? What status do they have?" in society and media.
00:09:23I appreciate them, I love them, but they are
00:09:27small, and they are
00:09:30delegitimized in mainstream media,
00:09:34so they are hardly written about, not
00:09:38reported on. You mentioned some NGOs two months
00:09:41ago. A large press
00:09:44conference was held. The two largest
00:09:48human rights organizations,
00:09:51B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights,
00:09:55both said that what was happening in Gaza
00:09:58was genocide, and this was cited worldwide, but
00:10:02Israeli media did not report from that
00:10:05press conference, except for Haaretz. Nothing that was
00:10:09said there, which was both concerning and interesting, nothing
00:10:13was conveyed to the Israeli
00:10:16public. Therefore, it is very difficult to fight
00:10:19against an entire coalition when
00:10:22everyone is satisfied, because Israelis want to
00:10:25know, and the media
00:10:28caters to
00:10:32their needs.
00:10:34Haaretz does what it can, but it is not enough. When we talk
00:10:38about the war in Gaza, global discourse moves
00:10:42between two extremes: absolute
00:10:45identification with Israeli fears
00:10:48and absolute identification with
00:10:51Palestinian suffering. Is it possible
00:10:55to imagine an ethical space between these two
00:10:58poles, a space in which we can simultaneously acknowledge the victims
00:11:01of October 7th, so that it doesn't become a moral
00:11:05alibi for the destruction of Gaza, especially not the killing of innocent
00:11:08people?
00:11:15I think that is precisely what every
00:11:19conscientious person
00:11:21should adopt as their stance. That is... Precisely
00:11:25the right stance. October 7th happened, it was terrible.
00:11:291200 Israelis were
00:11:32killed. I was there,
00:11:35I was there two days later, on October 9th,
00:11:39on the spot. What I saw there, I had never
00:11:42seen before, maybe in Sarajevo in '93,
00:11:45although I'm not sure even there. I was in
00:11:49Sarajevo during the siege, but in any case, it was
00:11:52terrible and it should be... judged
00:11:56and it should be publicly condemned, and the whole world
00:11:59should hear about it. Then
00:12:03the war came, which very
00:12:06quickly
00:12:10went beyond, exceeded all
00:12:13proportions.
00:12:16And from Gaza, which is
00:12:20home to 2.3 million
00:12:23people, mostly refugees in the second and third generation,
00:12:26you can condemn
00:12:30October 7th and fight
00:12:33against it, but understand that there is no
00:12:36proportionality.
00:12:381200 innocent
00:12:41people who were killed in the south
00:12:44of Israel in a brutal way, on the other hand,
00:12:48you have the killing
00:12:51of 20,000 children, a thousand
00:12:55babies. What is the connection between
00:12:58these two things and
00:13:00self-defense? What do you see
00:13:04as the greatest psychological
00:13:07or spiritual mechanism that today prevents a good
00:13:11portion of Israeli society from seeing Palestinians as people
00:13:15with equal status and dignity? Can this
00:13:18mechanism ever be dismantled
00:13:20from within?
00:13:24It
00:13:28is very difficult, it is very difficult
00:13:32to maintain a brutal occupation, like the Israeli
00:13:35occupation, for almost 50, 60
00:13:38years. Often it is barbaric,
00:13:42brutal, not legitimate. It is difficult
00:13:45to maintain that kind
00:13:48of occupation, and at the same time understand that
00:13:51the victims of that occupation are human beings
00:13:55like us. Like many other phenomena in
00:13:58history,
00:14:00phenomena of occupation,
00:14:02extermination, first
00:14:06you have to build for yourself
00:14:09an inhuman image
00:14:13of the enemy or the occupied or
00:14:15the oppressed. In this way you legitimize what
00:14:19you are doing. This dehumanization,
00:14:21demonization of Palestinians began long
00:14:25before October 7th. It lasted throughout all the years
00:14:28of occupation, constantly saying that all Palestinians
00:14:32are terrorists, that they are born to kill, that
00:14:35they want only one thing, which is to push the Jews into
00:14:39the sea. One after another. That is what
00:14:43you need to maintain
00:14:45the occupation. I have spent my whole life
00:14:49trying to break that vicious circle,
00:14:53trying to humanize Palestinians. I write about the victims,
00:14:57at least once a week I go to the occupied
00:15:00territories and write stories about the victims, for
00:15:0440 years. But it's hard to fight against that
00:15:06machinery. What is the
00:15:10balance of power within parliament?
00:15:13Do there exist opposition political
00:15:16structures
00:15:18with which you, as the voice
00:15:21of the intellectual community, could discuss problems
00:15:25in a way that you are not
00:15:29excluded, or rather, not eliminated from the conversation at the very
00:15:32start?
00:15:41First, they eliminate me. I am on
00:15:43television. I used to appear often on Israeli
00:15:47television. In the last two years, they invited me only
00:15:51twice on Israeli
00:15:53television. Yet, there was a time when I was
00:15:56almost every evening on
00:15:59some television worldwide. But in Israel,
00:16:03no one ordered them not to invite me, but they
00:16:06knew that if I participated in the program.
00:16:10As for opposition parties, I do not
00:16:14see any of them offering a real
00:16:18alternative. None of them are against
00:16:21the war. None of them have said a
00:16:25word about genocide. None of
00:16:27them advocate
00:16:31or strive to stop the occupation,
00:16:34apartheid. They are much closer to the government
00:16:38in their basic positions than it
00:16:41even seems
00:16:42from the outside.
00:16:46They only fight against Netanyahu personally. Many
00:16:50Israelis want him to step down, but that is not
00:16:53ideology, that is a personal
00:16:55matter. You received one
00:16:59of the most significant Israeli journalism awards, the Sokolov
00:17:02Prize, in the year 2021. This implies
00:17:06in some circles..." in Israel, there is exceptional
00:17:10recognition for your journalistic
00:17:13engagement. Yet, critics fault
00:17:16you, I came across this while preparing for this
00:17:20conversation, that you perhaps do not sufficiently take into account
00:17:24the fact that since its inception
00:17:26in 1948 of the last century, Israel
00:17:30has faced a combination of hostile states,
00:17:33irregular armed groups, rocket
00:17:36attacks, and calls for its
00:17:38destruction.
00:17:47First, I received the award, and I was grateful,
00:17:50it touched me, but it was 2021 or
00:17:542022. I'm not sure I would have
00:17:57received
00:17:59that award in 2025. I am almost certain I would not
00:18:02have. Yes, so, of course, there are
00:18:06Israelis, unfortunately. Since October 7th,
00:18:10that number has decreased, but there
00:18:13are still brave
00:18:16Israelis who
00:18:20speak publicly, who agree with me, who
00:18:24are interested in what I will write, but
00:18:26unfortunately they are a small and increasingly
00:18:30smaller minority, and
00:18:33therefore those awards,
00:18:38even if I received them, do not
00:18:41reflect the atmosphere in
00:18:44Israel today. Today Israel is more
00:18:47nationalistic, more racist than
00:18:50it has ever been, and I am much lonelier today
00:18:54than ever before. But I am not the story;
00:18:58the story is the suffering of the Palestinian people and
00:19:01above all the question of how to get out of
00:19:04this. In your text, there is
00:19:08a fascinating tension. On the one
00:19:12hand, deep humanism and identification with
00:19:15Palestinian suffering, and on the other hand, a rigid
00:19:19diagnosis of Israeli power structures. How do you reconcile these
00:19:22two positions? Do you believe that moral
00:19:26sensitivity towards Palestinians is possible only if the
00:19:29narrative of Israeli security is rejected, or do you believe that it is
00:19:32possible to simultaneously acknowledge Jewish
00:19:36trauma and condemn Israeli policy?
00:19:49I acknowledge Jewish trauma as long as it is
00:19:53not manipulated, as long as it is not
00:19:56exploited
00:20:01for illegal, illegitimate purposes, which is
00:20:05often the case. I part of Israel. I was born
00:20:08here, I will die here. I am
00:20:12part of everything that
00:20:15I, along with all Israelis, go through. I go through everything
00:20:18they go through. There is no doubt about that. But I am not willing to
00:20:22justify everything or anything because
00:20:26of what we have been through or what we are going through. And another thing I
00:20:30want to emphasize
00:20:31is
00:20:35that there are many voices in the Arab world, among
00:20:38Palestinians, which are
00:20:42hard to listen to if you are an Israeli, who call for
00:20:46the destruction of Israel, who threaten. But someone
00:20:50has to ask the question why they
00:20:52say that. When the Secretary-General
00:20:56of the UN said that
00:20:59there was a context for
00:21:02the crimes of October 7th,
00:21:042023,
00:21:06Israel condemned him, declared him persona non grata,
00:21:10but he spoke the truth. Yes, there is a context. It doesn't
00:21:14justify the crime, but we must understand
00:21:18that everything has its reason. Let's
00:21:22deal with the reasons, not just
00:21:24the consequences.
00:21:27The slogan that has become a global symbol
00:21:31of resistance is "Free Palestine from the river to
00:21:34the sea." Uh, it is also
00:21:37a fierce subject
00:21:39of controversy. Uh, some interpret it as
00:21:43a call for the liberation of territory from military
00:21:46domination and apartheid. Others interpret it
00:21:50as a call for the elimination of Israel. How do you
00:21:53read this phrase? Do you believe that it is
00:21:56possible that within the same slogan,
00:21:59emancipatory and destructive impulses
00:22:02coexist, some who actually desire
00:22:05equality and political freedom for Palestinians and others who perhaps
00:22:09carry elements of the very negation
00:22:11of Israel?
00:22:18"to both exist."
00:22:20Yes, both exist. As you know, I don't know in what
00:22:24proportions, but there are those,
00:22:27anti-Semitism, I don't deny that anti-Semitism
00:22:31exists, and many express their
00:22:34anti-Semitism in that way, but there are many
00:22:38conscientious people who believe that
00:22:41between the river and
00:22:44the sea, everyone must
00:22:47be free, and with
00:22:50that I can wholeheartedly agree. That is precisely my
00:22:53dream, my vision: equality
00:22:56between the river and the sea. Israel should
00:23:00be one democratic state, but whoever
00:23:03has another idea that can be implemented, I will gladly
00:23:07listen to it, but the call
00:23:09for freedom from the river to the sea does not
00:23:12necessarily mean the extermination of Israel. Yes, it
00:23:16means the
00:23:19end of the Jewish state and the establishment
00:23:22of another state that will be a democracy for all,
00:23:26for both Palestinians and Israelis. That is not
00:23:29extermination. That is called democracy in every
00:23:33language.
00:23:36Does that suggest that
00:23:39the two-state solution is truly
00:23:42dead?
00:23:48"I will be so happy."
00:23:52I would like to be wrong, but I think
00:23:56that with 700
00:23:58thousand Jewish
00:24:01settlers in the West Bank who have
00:24:04taken all the land, especially
00:24:08in the past two years, the facts
00:24:11on the ground are such that I do not see how any
00:24:15Israeli government will evacuate them from there in
00:24:18that context." I think
00:24:22the train has left for a two-state
00:24:25solution. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I would
00:24:29be happy if someone proved to me that it is still an option, because that would be
00:24:33the best solution, to divide into two states,
00:24:36one Jewish, one Palestinian. But if that is not
00:24:40possible, as I think it is not possible, then we should
00:24:44stop talking about an impossible solution
00:24:47and start thinking about an alternative.
00:24:50Because for 20, 30, 40 years
00:24:54we have been talking about two states, nothing has moved. In
00:24:58reality, we are now further from that solution than ever
00:25:02before. We are further from it, because
00:25:05there are more and more settlers, Jewish settlers
00:25:09in the West Bank,
00:25:12which is the last place left where Palestinians could
00:25:15have their own state. Therefore, why don't we
00:25:18try something else? Democracy,
00:25:21equality, one person, one vote, because
00:25:25for 55 years now these two peoples have been living in one
00:25:28state. Let that state be democratic, not
00:25:32an apartheid state.
00:25:35You say that there are increasingly more
00:25:37settlers, settlements in the West
00:25:41Bank. Where do these people come from? Do they come of their own
00:25:45will, or are they guided by
00:25:49powerful political
00:25:50structures?
00:25:59Firstly, we cannot separate them from
00:26:02the army, from the police, and from
00:26:05the government. All these organs
00:26:08protect them, support them
00:26:11with money, with budget, with protection, and
00:26:15enable them to settle there. They come
00:26:19from various places, but what truly
00:26:22encourages them, it's not that the government sends them there,
00:26:25they are partly
00:26:28Jews who believe in crazy ideas that only, for example,
00:26:32Jews have the right to live in this land, that Jews
00:26:36are the chosen people and
00:26:39that they have the right to do whatever
00:26:43they want, that Palestinians are nothing, trash, they say.
00:26:46So they are motivated by very radical
00:26:50racism and nationalism which
00:26:52is in combination with
00:26:55religion, because mostly they are religious, especially the
00:26:59violent ones. They have no boundaries, they are very
00:27:04violent, very dangerous, and things are getting worse and worse, and
00:27:07the government and the army, by not
00:27:10stopping them, become partners in
00:27:13that project. Yes, religious
00:27:16identifications are often actually used as weapons
00:27:20in geopolitical narratives. How, Mr. Levy, can we avoid
00:27:24the Palestinian struggle from being
00:27:27reduced simply to Islam, and Israel
00:27:30to the question of Judaism, instead of talking
00:27:33about rights, statehood, security,
00:27:37democracy, universal principles, which
00:27:40you emphasize?
00:27:42You know something
00:27:50about religious turmoil in your part of the world,
00:27:54and you know how difficult
00:27:57it is. Until a few
00:28:01years ago, the
00:28:04conflict between
00:28:06Israelis and Palestinians
00:28:10was mainly a political and territorial conflict
00:28:14that should have been resolved at that
00:28:17stage. It was not resolved mainly because
00:28:21of Israel, not only because of Israel, but predominantly because of
00:28:24Israel, because Israel was not ready to
00:28:28give Palestinians their rights, and
00:28:30now it is entering a new phase
00:28:33where fundamentalist,
00:28:37extremist, religious actors on both
00:28:40sides lead the main discourse. This is much worse,
00:28:44because when you deal with fundamentalists, there is no
00:28:46room for compromise. The word
00:28:49compromise
00:28:51is completely foreign to them. They don't know what that
00:28:54means. Then things are much worse, and I think that
00:28:58now we are entering that phase where I have
00:29:02my fundamentalists, my jihadists, and they have
00:29:06their fundamentalists.
00:29:10they are still not the majority on both sides
00:29:13and that's why it's important to find
00:29:16a solution now, let me briefly
00:29:19return to the topic we
00:29:23only partially opened,
00:29:26that is anti-Semitism, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek
00:29:30says that as long as there are people like you... you, Mr. Levi,
00:29:33anti-Semitism has no chance, do you
00:29:37sometimes feel that
00:29:39you carry on your back the burden of moral
00:29:42testimony of your own society, do you have
00:29:46the feeling that history might have unintentionally put you in that role?
00:30:02a big role for my small shoulders, I don't believe
00:30:06I'm that important, I'm not being falsely modest, but I'm
00:30:10not that influential, that important in any
00:30:13direction, I'm a journalist, I
00:30:17try to do my job to
00:30:20report, to inform
00:30:23Israelis about what's happening in the occupied
00:30:27territories and to re-humanize
00:30:31Palestinians for... Israelis, you know what,
00:30:34Palestinians are not what they are
00:30:37presented to be, because Israelis and Palestinians no longer
00:30:41meet. I have my own moral
00:30:44compass, of course and that
00:30:47motivates me, but in many
00:30:50cases I am accused of the opposite, that
00:30:54my, that anti-Semites
00:30:58use my.