Gideon Levy's Tree Of Lies

    Having come to Israel in 1998 with very little experience outside of the United States, I was as "green" as another other tourist that comes here.  However, like my friends who have decided to stay here for the long haul, I realize how different we are for having chosen the path less traveled by in life.  One fortunate consequence of our experiences here is the ability to see things from an entirely different perspective, and to recognize what others cannot.  A recent article by Gideon Levy provides such an example.
    As expected with Levy, he immediately adopts an aggressive attitudes towards what he perceives as "the right wing" or "the strong hand." 

We here in the Middle East could not help but be impressed by the new spirit he ushered in.  Negotiations with Iran, a handshake with Hugo Chavez, openness toward Cuba, tolerance toward North Korea and the cancellation of the missile shield in Eastern Europe.  A new dawn broke after years of darkness under his predecessor, for whom the Apaches did the talking and who primitively divided the world into good guys and bad guys with his imbecilic invasion of Iraq and hopeless occupation of Afghanistan. America became less hated in the world.

 Any country (or person for that matter) that exerts itself or shows an obvious advantage will be hated by others.  Levy, a Jew with two parents having come from post-war Germany, would obviously understand what it means to be hated for excelling.
    After numerous conversations with a professional musician from Cape Town in the past five or so years, I realized just how much influence the United States has in the world and how much that world resents America and Americans for showing them the magnitude U.S. success-over and over again.  Lance Armstrong demonstrated America's ability to dominate, even in a foreign country.
    Levy's comments reflect classic second world resentment.  However his arrogant and self-assured tone reflect a cavalier first world condescension.  His verbal demagoguery continues, as he talks about Obama:

So far he has betrayed his mission in the one region most threatening to world peace.

 So now Obama isn't hip enough-not minority enough because won't come into Israel and give a sovereign country the bullying that it is dying for?  Gideon Levy knows damn well than the only institution in Israel that doesn't have to answer to a higher authority are the journalistic branja.  Israel's maskilim, or educated elite, work day and night to regulate and subjugate the minds and attitudes of Israelis, and worse, the attitudes and minds of the world towards Israel.  Perhaps the biggest source of disharmony in the world comes from the media itself.
    Next, however, are Levy's most pernicious comments:

Israel can twist the arms of any president. You don't want to freeze the settlements? Okay, never mind. You don't want to take responsibility for the crimes in Gaza? Okay, never mind. You don't want to end the occupation? Okay, never mind. This is not the conduct of a Nobel laureate and president.

Why should Israel have to twist anyone's arms over its own land?  Occupation?  The occupational arm twisting of Israel's ever-present "secular consciousness" is never questioned-here or abroad.  Who defines occupation?  The Israeli media hijacked this word and absolutely twisted its meaning.  Furthermore, does Hamas have to explain its years of bombing "Israel proper" and never having to answer for it?  If you want to be fair, Gideon, why can't you seem to understand the other side's predicament?
    Unfortunately, so few people understand the geopolitics of Israel's power structure.  Levy's ethnic background is typical of those who are calling the shots in this country.  Born and bred in Tel Aviv-he and his anti-Israel anti-Torah buddies write their hateful, condemnatory "masterpieces" in relative comfort as Israel-haters around the world applaud.  If what befell Sderot had happened to Tel Aviv-the retaliation would have been swift and unapologetic.  Even the champions of social justice, including Levy, Meretz, and the entire Tel Aviv cabal, would be hypocritically defending Israel's reaction in such a scenario. 
    The Israeli high school curriculum includes education pointing out the fact that immigrants from Arab countries-mizrachim were hastily put in far away areas without any economic potential-places like Sderot.  The residents of Sderot were forced to carve out their existence in these remote places without the assistance that families of Holocaust survivors (rightfully) received.  And now, some fifty years later the children and grandchildren of those displaced immigrants are still paying the price, silently, for being  who they are supposed to be (Jews) living in places where they are supposed to be (in the Land of Israel).
    How painful it is to hear Gideon Levy's vicious slander against Israel and its citizens.  It is time that those of us who understand what is being overlooked speak out.  Adam, the book of Genesis (3:24) details, was kept from reaching the tree of life by "a flaming sword which turned every way."  However the malevolent, ever-turning factory of lies that is being manufactured daily by Israel's self-appointed intelligentsia, only serves to keep hidden the tree of lies that is blooming in Israel's central (Tel Aviv) region.  It is up to the silent minority of Jews to break through that barrier and uproot this poisonous tree of self-hatred.