Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: vacanziere scemenze di Gideon Levy

giustamente tritato da FD
http://falsedichotomies.com/2011/04/25/us-him/
As an Israeli, Gideon Levy is the ultimate useful idiot for those
whose life mission is the destruction of the mighty Zionist
enterprise. In his weekly 'Twilight Zone' article, he reports on a
different aspect of the occupation's evils. Although he's often lax
with his journalistic standards in these pieces, I do think they do a
service in highlighting the consequences of continued Israeli rule in
the West Bank, and I'd agree with him that most Israelis are apathetic
about the occupation. Giving him a weekly column, though, is a step
too far.
What most winds me up about Levy is the consistency with which he
speaks of 'we' and 'us' to talk of Israelis, when it's clear that he
doesn't include himself in that particular collective, at least not
when he's about to launch yet another onslaught against it. This week,
he's banging on about Israelis abroad. "You might expect such a
tourism-loving people to open its eyes and ears to what can be seen
and heard around the globe; instead, we keep walling ourselves in
against what the world thinks and feels...20,000 will come from the
Sinai without seeing Egypt, thousands of students come home every year
without exchanging a word with a Pole [he's referring to the March of
the Living], and tens of thousands come back from Goa or the Tierra
del Fuego without listening to what the Indians of South America or
the Indians of India have to say. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis
have "done" America and Europe, east and west, and they will come home
as oblivious and closed in as they were when they left." As opposed to
the other nations of the world, who are famous for travelling to beach
resorts and isolated islands in order to find out as much as they can
about local culture.
He then attacks the Israeli tendency to issue travel warnings in
advance of major holidays, intimating that they have a detrimental
effect on Israel's view of the wider world. How does this square with
his assertion that "No one seems to travel as much as the wandering
Israeli"? And what is wrong with sometimes erring on the side of
caution? Off the top of my head, Israelis and Jews have been targeted
by terror attacks in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Kenya, and Mumbai.
Attempting to warn people in advance of potential attacks is simply
the intelligence services doing their job. It's not a hard science.
They should not be criticised because they are not always able to
predict the future.
Next, we have pure invention: "Alongside the threats of the
Counterterrorism Bureau comes the usual threat about the whole world
being against us. The Poles are anti-Semites, hardly anything needs to
be said about the Turks and Germans, the Swedes all hate us and so do
the French. Nearly every young person will come back with some
fabricated story about some appalling anti-Semitic incident." For what
it's worth, and leaving aside the fact that Levy's powers of
omniscience are not yet sufficient to know whether somebody's story of
an anti-Semitic incident is true or false, this has not been my
experience of Israelis returning from foreign shores. And if he is
right, why are Israelis such big travellers?
Ah, it's because they travel together. "Between the Chabad House in
Nepal and Moshe's hummus place in Thailand, Israelis come in tight
bunches - Israelis with Israelis, no foreigners allowed. They eat
shawarma and shakshuka, schnitzel in a pita and pizza on a plate just
like back home, including croutons and cornflakes from Israel. That's
why they went all that way - to be Israelis at home and Israelis
abroad. Even when in Rome they don't do as the Romans do." Where does
one start with this evil little paragraph? Firstly, restaurants in
popular tourist centres always cater to their major clientele. It's
true that a McLeod Ganj rooftop cafe will have an Israeli page on the
menu. But it will also have an Italian page, a French page, and a
Korean page. It's called good business. Not wanting to eat Indian food
all the time in India does not make one beyond the pale. It's true
that Israelis flock together in a particularly noticeable way, but
it's an exaggeration to say that they are despised for it. Whenever
I've travelled I have seen non-Israelis getting on perfectly well with
Israelis, banter included. I've sometimes even been put out that
Israelis have been more interested in the non-Israelis than me. And
even if he were right, would this trait be that worthy of
condemnation? Birds of a feather flock together - what of it? Would he
say the same of the Japanese?
The problem is that Israelis know nothing about other cultures:  "The
Americans are square, the Indians are primitive, the South Americans
are backward, the Turks are Muslim, the Brits are old-fashioned, the
Scandinavians are naive and the Italians are ridiculous. Israelis are
the chosen people. We'll teach them all a lesson in improvisation,
resourcefulness and trickery." Wow - national stereotyping! An Israeli
invention? Truly we are all-powerful. And where does he get these
particular stereotypes from? What does ridiculous mean in this context
(admitedly at this point I should check the Hebrew original, but I
can't be bothered)? Do Israelis really think Americans are square? Or
could it be that Pesach is a slow news week and Levy had to create a
fiction in shorter time than usual?
For only he can get away with writing stuff like this. It's false,
self-righteous, nasty, and juvenile. The aim is to make Israel out to
be as bad as possible, and for Levy to be good as possible. It's how
he makes a living, and it's how he's achieved his (minor) fame. If
somebody had written this article about another nation, Levy would be
calling them a racist. It is libel on a national scale.

 As an Israeli, Gideon Levy is the ultimate useful idiot
e coi "sionisti" che criticano Levy usando terminologia leninista
passiamo e chiudiamo