Haaretz Columnist Gideon Levy on Israel’s Conduct in Gaza

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: My first guest says there is no way to “explain Israel’s conduct in Gaza.” He is Gideon Levy. He was an adviser to the late Prime Minister Shimon Peres, then leader of Israel’s Labour Party, and is now a columnist for Haaretz. And he’s joining us from Tel Aviv. Gideon Levy, welcome back to our program. Can I just ask you, you know, to explain what you said yourself, there is no answer for this conduct? What do you exactly mean by that?

GIDEON LEVY, COLUMNIST, HAARETZ NEWSPAPER AND FORMER ADVISER TO SHIMON PERES: Look, by the time we will finish this interview, another baby will be killed in Gaza. By the time that you will finish your show, there will be another two women killed in Gaza. How long can this last? Israel had the full right to go for this campaign, for this war, but there must be limits, and we crossed them so long time ago. But above all, answering your question, where do we aim to? What will it be any better for Israel’s security if another 20,000 Palestinians will be killed in Gaza? If another half a million people will lose their homes? What does this contribute for the security of Israel? We have to realize that the goals that Israel had declared are unachievable, or at least partly unachievable. And we should concentrate now about creating a new reality and not killing and killing for the purpose of killing.

AMANPOUR: Gideon, I want to get into that in a moment, but to answer and to illustrate what you just said about more babies, more women being killed, there is the latest, and we have to say, graphic video that’s coming in from Gaza today resulting from airstrikes last night. The hospital at Al-Aqsa there in Gaza says 57 people were killed, nearly 70 injured, at least 10 of those were children, the hospital says. So, the government keeps saying they’re doing their best to avoid civilian death. The U.S. keeps doing a shuttle diplomacy, which seems principally aimed at minimizing civilian deaths. Not only that, but also to minimize the chance of an of an expanded war. But in your mind, having covered so many of these Israel Gaza wars, what is the point? What is the purpose three months in of this, as you put it, very heavy death toll? What is the strategic point?

LEVY: I doubt very much if there is one. First of all, everyone is paying it’s — his lip service. The Americans, the Israelis, they do their best. The Americans ask gently Israel to refrain from killing civilians. But the outcome is very clear, it is a bloodbath, and you cannot ignore it. The only one who ignores it is Israeli media, by the way, if you let me make a remark about them, because the Israelis are the only people in the world right now who are not exposed at all to what’s going on in Gaza. Nothing. We were always laughing at the Russian TV covering the war in Ukraine. Ours is much worse because here it is voluntarily, nobody dictates us not to show the suffer and the punishment of Gaza and Israelis are not exposed to it. But that’s just a, by the way, remark. There are goals, the prime minister had declared them, namely releasing the hostages and crashing Hamas. After three months I can tell you, we are not getting closer to both of them. I think about the releasing the hostages, which from my point of view, must be in first priority and they don’t go together, I think that here we are going far and far. We are much more distanced now than few weeks ago from releasing the hostages, and this should bother any person who is conscious.

AMANPOUR: Gideon, I want to ask you about that because that is obviously – – we’ve seen the biggest wish and demand from the Israeli people to bring back their loved ones who are still held hostage and under bombardment, by the way, and under Hamas control inside Gaza. The Israeli government, when there was the last truce, maintained that only its tough action brought that truce to bear and released more than a hundred hostages. There are others who say, well, actually, it was negotiations with Hamas through third-parties that did that. What do you think? What do the Israeli people think is the best way to bring hostages back?

LEVY: It’s even not a question what I think, it’s a question what is the reality. Until now, Israel hardly released one hostage by force. All the hostages who were released were released throughout negotiation. But Israel always chooses the violent way as the first priority, not only to release the hostages, by the way, also to solve the problem of Gaza, also to solve the Palestinian issue, it’s always, first of all, let’s try violence. And then, if it fails, let’s think about something else. Why wouldn’t we — after this terrible war, why wouldn’t we, once and for all, try another way that we never tried. Why not to start with diplomacy? Not — why not to start with talking as first priority and shooting as the last priority? But Israel right now is very far off it. Israel is supporting this war almost wall to wall. Israeli public opinion supports this war and does not want to see ending. And this worries me and makes me very sad personally as an Israeli.