“I think there is a vision of Israel being a Jewish democratic state in which all its citizens are equal. There is not structural discrimination against non-Jewish minorities, in which the Jewish component of that state is the calendar of life, some of the cultural background, could still be the flag, could still be the anthem,” he said.

However he added that after 60 years past the Holocaust, “if there is going to be a nation state called Israel and if we’re still organized according to a nation state…once everyone inside the state, there should be full equality.

He adds that Israel hasn’t realized that full equality situation. “There is clearly discrimination against the non-Jewish, principally Arab-Palestinian minority. If Israel wants to be able to call itself a Jewish democratic state, then we have to address that,”

He believes this is still a major challenge for Israel to face. “If Israel maintains control of the Palestinian territories that it occupied in 1967—and effectively, even though settlements were withdrawn from Gaza, Israel still controls Gaza, 'cause Israel places an external envelope of control around Gaza, so we're still talking about Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank—if Israel maintains that control, then really you have two options: either you impose an overt apartheid system, and you can set up little bantustans of Palestinian limited self-governance.

“Under those circumstances you're either not going to be democratic, i.e., the apartheid option, or you're not going to be Jewish, because you'll be a Jewish minority in a very short period of time. The alternative to that is a two-state solution, is to say that the occupation that began in 1967 has to end. Any deviation from the 1967 line would have to be agreed by a representative Palestinian interlocutor. There has been a negotiator in the past. When we've tried to implement a two-state solution, what we've talked about is a land swap. Even, as I would say, suggesting that all the settlements over the '67 line are not legal, which is my position,” Levy said during the interview.

Levy is straightforward in saying that there is no love lost between Israel and Hamas, and there's no sympathy for Hamas amongst the Israeli population, “but that's how it should be—there's no sympathy for Israel amongst the Hamas,”

“Israelis and Palestinians are in an adversarial relationship. The idea that we can be best buddies with Palestinian leaders in Ramallah is, unfortunately, not too reflective of our reality. There is a debate; there's a very serious debate not reflected in the United States.

“It's very easy when you're this far away to say, "Don't talk to any of these bad guys." The dirty secret, of course, is that when America has its lives at stake, when you have 150-odd thousand troops on the ground in Iraq, suddenly the guys that were shooting you yesterday, if they're willing to stop shooting you today and they're willing to call themselves an awakening council, then you'll give them arms. If it requires getting a ceasefire with Muqtada al-Sadr to have a bit of quiet, then suddenly that becomes a very attractive option. I think the same is true of Israel,” he said.

He revealed that inside Israel there's a very serious debate about a ceasefire with Hamas, about how one deals with the Hamas reality, not exclusively militarily, adding that “We failed to deal with it militarily. Fatah failed to deal with it militarily. Some things do not avail themselves of military solutions. So, yes, inside and outside government, you have a debate amongst the public, amongst the leadership, amongst, and the senior ex-military people,”

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment