Gideon Levi
Gideon LeviFlash 90

Leftist journalist Gideon Levi, who participated Monday night in a television program marking 40 years of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, said that Jews living in Judea and Samaria are “criminals” because “they destroyed the dream of peace.”

It is a huge enterprise,” Levi said in the program hosted by Nissim Mishal on Channel One. “The settlers are an active and aware group that is ready to sacrifice. What they have done for the past 40 years is a crime, a violation of international law. Some of them are violent. They have destroyed the dream of peace,” he said.

We are all settlers,” Levi said. “We are all involved and responsible, either by commission or omission. If Bank Leumi has a branch in Maale Adumim, it is a participant in this enterprise. The entire country is knee-deep in this morass. I only that when peace comes the state will pay for it.”

Professor Aryeh Eldad, who also participated in the program, said that Levi's hatred was due to jealousy. “He is jealous of this young community that is growing and thriving and developing new communities, and is thoroughly integrated with the top levels of the army,” Eldad said.

Journalist Emily Amrousi, another program participant, vehemently denied Levi's statement that residents of Judea and Samaria got special benefits from the state. “This is nonsense,” she said. “The state has invested millions in security apparatuses in Judea and Samaria in the same way that it invests in security in the north, south, east and west. Residents of these communities do not get special treatment or money. They do not get one shekel more than any other resident of Israel.”