By Iqbal Jassat

Posing a challenge to Israelis, Levy says the time now is for them to ask themselves if they are willing to “live in a country that lives on blood”.

In an astonishing piece published in Haaretz by one of its most forthright journalists, Gideon Levy launches into a powerful and courageous attack on Israel and Israelis.

In his fearless column, Levy accuses Israel of turning into a country that lives on blood. He writes that while the daily crimes of the occupation are already less relevant, the past year has seen the emergence of a new reality of mass killing and crimes of an entirely different scale.

“We are in a genocidal reality; the blood of tens of thousands of people has flowed.”

Posing a challenge to Israelis, Levy says the time now is for them to ask themselves if they are willing to “live in a country that lives on blood”.

“Are we, the Israelis, willing to live in the only country in the world whose existence is based on blood? The only vision that is widespread in Israel now is to live from one war to another war, from one bloodletting to the next, from massacre to massacre, with intervals spaced as widely as possible.”

Levy slams the “right” for promising a permanent blood-soaked reality: war, mass killing, systematic violation of international law, a pariah state, repeating in an endless cycle.

“The Palestinians will continue to be massacred, and Israelis will continue to close their eyes to it? Hard to believe. A time will come when more Israelis will open their eyes and recognize that their country subsists on blood. Without bloodshed, we are told, we have no existence – and we make our peace with this horrific statement.”

‘Exist Forever?’

Can such a country “exist forever”? According to Levy, Israelis not only believe that it will but are convinced that its existence is dependent on “blood offering”.

“We not only believe that such a country can exist forever, we are convinced that without the blood offering, it has no existence. Every three years, a bloodletting in Gaza, every four years, in Lebanon. In between, there is the West Bank, and, occasionally, a blood sortie to additional targets. There is no other country like it in the world.”

Levy’s column makes clear his infuriation and annoyance with Israel’s population. He finds it difficult to imagine them willing to “live in a country that runs on blood”.

Describing the war in Gaza as a watershed, he lambasts Israeli media for campaigns that demonize and dehumanize the Palestinians.

In his unrestrained fashion, a trademark of his forthrightness, Levy slams a “monstrous chorus of commentators” for “successfully selling us the idea that we can live for eternity on blood”.

Clearly “gatvol” (fedup/exasperated) Levy writes that living in a country of blood requires that “… we will execute generation after generation of young regime opponents, imprison tens of thousands of people in concentration camps, we will expel, cull, expropriate and, of course, kill, and that is how we will live…”.

Has the world allowed it?

Yes, indeed the world continues to allow Israel to commit the most horrendous genocide in Gaza. Notwithstanding efforts undertaken by South Africa at the International Court of Justice, the world has failed to rein in Netanyahu and his criminal gang of warlords.

However, the question posed by Levy is whether the Israelis are willing to allow it and how long can they live with the knowledge that their existence depends on blood.

“When will we ask whether there genuinely is no alternative to a country of blood? After all, there is no other country like this.”

‘Programmed and Directed’

Levy writes that Israel was programmed and directed to behave as a country that lives off blood, even more so after October 7.

As is widely known, though Zionist apologists try to sweep it under the carpet, October 7 did not happen in a vacuum.

The carefully coordinated attack launched by Hamas was a powerful reminder that Israel’s colonial enterprise is neither tenable nor sustainable, as per Marwan Bishara, a senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.

Though Levy does not – in this article at least – extend his anguish to countries and Zionist organizations who fund, facilitate and defend Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians, it is essential to charge them as complicit in the shedding of blood.

Not a single pro-Israel Zionist group may escape from their culpability, no matter whether they are based in New York or Johannesburg.

Jonathan Cook makes a number of pertinent observations in his book ‘Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair’, that may explain why Levy’s consternation and dismay are justified.

Though published almost two decades ago, Cook warned that Israel has developed and refined policies to disperse, imprison and impoverish the Palestinians in a relentless effort to destroy them as a nation.

The crux of it lies in the false Zionist narrative that Palestinians never existed as a people.