Netanyahu, stop being afraid and sowing fear

A refreshing, balanced and honest appraisal. The actions and words of Netanyahu cause untold damage to Israel's standing abroad, and the knee-jerk response of 'ant-semitism' to the slightest criticism creates a dangerous and degrading precedent. We should hear more from Mr Levy .

with a range that far exceeds Israel and reaches Europe? Is it to "defend themselves" against Israel??? Or is it to do with being a nation of martyrs and spreading Islam by the sword in Europe when the time is ripe?

Iran does NOT have to drop a bomb on Israel. All they have to do is give a few to their martyr brothers of Hezballahto smuggle. The martyrs believe in virgins as a reward and a Jewish state as an anathema damn the consequences. Iran has made it very clear they do not want any Israel and started threatening Israel as soon as the Mullahs took over. Iran can watch the fireworks and deny deny deny. It worked so well for Arafat,till one of his Al Aqsa martyrs admitted they would stop if Arafat their leader told them to stop. Needless to say the aplogy industry kept crying poor peace loving Arafat .

you cannot capture your own lands !! all land conquered in 1967 was israels land !!!!!!!!!

its destruction.No borders were necessary for Arab armies to announce they would annihilate Israel if it dared exist.The Arabs refused to accept any borders. Forget that Arabs told their brothers in Palestine it would all be over in a few days and the Jews would all be massacred,leaving it all for the Arabs. Forget that Arabs and their apologists have not stopped crying UN but started this whole mess by Arabs ignoring the UN. Forget that the Pals elected Hamad with a written charter of no negotiations and obliteration of Israel by Islam,borders did not come into it.Just an ethnically cleansed Palestine as sacred Arab Waqf with all Jews murdered or if lucky expelled. Forget Iran their patron also wants to remove Israel no matter what the borders. Post that on your apologists for terrorists website.

Iran's martyrs proxies do not have to drop any bombs,they can smuggle them and damn the consequences as long as they can get rid of Israel. Iran can sit back and watch the fireworks and deny,deny,deny. It worked for Arafat the apology machine was working full speed till one his Al Aqsa martyrs admitted on the BBC that they would stop when Abu Amr told them to stop.

Netanyahu is the new George Bush. No one likes him, he doesn't have a clue and every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie. Down here is Aus we're usually big supporters of Israel but boy has the public changed their opinion in the last 12 months.... Got rid of George Bush, now we just need to get rid of his clone.

Levy agrees that all the threats mentioned by Bibi are probable but suggest they are ignored as to acknowledge them creates fear. Bibi is not suggesting we are to be afraid but is telling the world to take steps against such threats but not ignore them like Levy is advising. No need to be scared but we must face up to threats like the PLO, Hamas, Hizbollah, and Iran. All of these groups are enemies of Israel and hostile to all the things Gideon says Israel is lucky to have. What is beautiful in Israel is envied and hated by Israel's enemies.

Rabin we miss you so so very much

expressing doubts about how peaceful their so called peaceful nuclear program is. They dont need to drop a bomb,just hand a few to Hezballah martyrs who have a nuclear explosion on their flag,then watch the fireworks and deny deny deny. It worked for Arafat till one of his Al Aqsa martyrs admitted on the BBC they were doing what he wanted them to do. The useful idiots join any denial chorus judging by past perfortmance.

expressing doubts about how peaceful their so called peaceful nuclear program is. They dont need to drop a bomb,just hand a few to Hezballah martyrs who have a nuclear explosion on their flag,then watch the fireworks and deny deny deny. It worked for Arafat till one of his Al Aqsa martyrs admitted on the BBC they were doing what he wanted them to do. The useful idiots join any denial chorus judging by past perfortmance.

doesn't like what Gideon Levy is saying. So in the greatest traditions of free speech and democracy tell's Gideon to shut up. That the new argument from the Zionists, when they have a break from planting flags declaring that this belongs to Greater Israel and hear people saying what they disagree with?

Gideon Levy tells us ``Hezbollah and Hamas are trying to arm themselves. Yes, this is true. But they have no chance against Israel`` Well Gideon When YOU will be an infantry combat soldier in the IDF, Who will have to risk his own life entering Lebanon when Hisboallah rockets fly, I will be willing to here your theories of this kind of acceptability & admissibility, Until then, do shut up!

Gideon Levy tells us ``Hezbollah and Hamas are trying to arm themselves. Yes, this is true. But they have no chance against Israel`` Well Gideon When YOU will be an infantry combat soldier in the IDF, Who will have to risk his own life entering Lebanon when Hisboallah rockets fly, I will be willing to here your theories of this kind of acceptability & admissibility, Until then, do shut up!

"the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death...."

The paranoid Jews left Germany in the 30's to go to Israel and elsewhere, the cool heads stayed and we know what happened to the ones that stayed. For us Jews, a healthy dose of paranoia and fear is essential for survival. Just imagine if our lives were in the hands of the talkback posters here...and there was no Israeli army. I see absolutely nothing amazing about Iran wanting to bomb Israel and destroy it. Just look at the way they tortured their own people, raped their women demonstrators, and tell me that they wouldn't use this kind of brutality against Israel.

"No country has ever had to give back land they won in battle- and certainly not aggressive battle."sz Try googling the following for a cure to your problem--lack of knowledge. "The inadmissability of territory gained through war---regardless of who instigated it". NB---We are now in the 21 st century and people have moved on.Have done sicnce 1948. You would do well to catch up.

"you live in another world ignoring all the threats made to Israel from her neighbors" Taking neighbour's territory doesn't get them riled? Does the UNSC just make it up when it says it is inadmissible to acquire territory by war and tells Israel to withdraw? "Tell us who originally owned the land you are occupying?" If I leave, Israel will return Palestinian territory? Amazing! Many UNSC resolutions against Australia? " No country has ever had to give back land they won in battle.." Strange Israel has! "You are a pouting, jumping anti-Israeli who has little insight to a country`s independence and right to defend herself." Ah yes, go the name calling and insults. Taken your hate pills today eh? "If you really feel for arab downtrodden.." Don't care about them actually. BTW it's 'A'rab. " The more you write, the more intelligent people laugh at your diatribes and self-fueling hatreds" Asking that Israel act within the law is hatred? WOW! AMAZING!!!!!!!

"The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention." Bibi has made the world to be a vast anti-Semitic islamofascist conspiracy. "The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category." And Is not Iran behind the vast anti-Semite conspiracy as Bibi assures us? ""How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." Just keep them scared and stirred up and they won't think. "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." It works for Netanyahu. He is simply using the political techniques of another famous conservative.

Levy is a nut. He proves the saying "Jews are their own worst enemy". There are only two major motives in life, Profit nd Power. Levy wil write anything to get POWER back to his side.

The first paragraph in Mr Levy's article is a clear example of psychotic denial of reality. If he is not mentally disturbed, then, the only explanation for his statements, is that he is an opportunist, who will write anything in order to gain some kind of "fame". One way or the other, I feel compassion for him.

I don't like Levy. he is one of very few intellectuals who in the same time very stupid. but this is my opinion, I do however have 1 question. If Levy is right all is well. but what if he is wrong.Mr levy, do you have kids? are they in Israel? if you are wrong what about them?

"If there is ever a country that has its rights - historical and recent, it is Israel." (sz) Nonsense. What is, I ask you, Israel's right to occupy, for 42 years now, a foreign and stateless population - on a territory outside its declared sovereignty?. Israel is the last democratic country to do that. There used to be a name for it: Colonialism. You sound very ill-informed: International Law ignores what are "historic national rights". Think Serbia and Kosovo, for instance. "No country has ever had to give back land they won in battle." (sz) You are talking about the past. Time for you to awake. It is now 2009. International law is now very clear on the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. See, UN Security Council Res. 242, Nov 22, 1967. Time for you to awake. It is now 2009.

'No country has ever had to give back land they won in battle'- and certainly not aggressive battle.' That is not historically accurate actually, gains have often been overturned at a subsequent peace conference. However, all the rules changed in 1947-8. The UN Charter does NOT permit nations to hold onto land seized in war. It is now illegal to do so and quite right too: history is littered with wars waged in pursuit of a landgrab and enough is enough already. So no, Israel has no legal or moral right AT ALL to hold onto even one dunam of land acquired by conquest since 1948. Tough, but that's the new rules, it's not Herzl's 19th Century Europe we're living in now.

agree with you.Gideon is a constant anti.The problem is that he represent Haaretz,that was suppose to be a good newspaper !!

"Following [Gideon Levy's] laughable idiocy Israel doesn't even need army, because there is no threat." (Meo) Lesson I in "The Art of Debate". Putting words in the mouth of one's opponent is the way of the liars and propagandists.

Mr Gideon Levy accused Prime minister Netanyahu of being cynical or irresposible. I wander if these accusations are not better directed to Mr. Levy himself! Writing that Israel is facing imaginary threats is extraordinary cynical or irresposible. Does Mr. Levy believe that Hamas's Quassams and Hezbollah's Katyushas exist in Prime Minister Netanyahu's imagination only? Or does he believe that Iran's president Ahmadinejad is un undercover Mosssad agent cynically used by Prime Minister Netanyahu to scare Israelis? Some decency is badly needed! Radu Stern

Chapeau, Gideon !.You are right and corageus again !. The problem lies in the fact that Nethanyahu and his allies have been voted to Power democratically by a majority of israelis, that have bought what has been selling for years, so they are too to blame. On the other hand, he is very good to sell himself to the americans. He knows the tricks. So, after all Israel is handling a colony with promises that no one believes.Not even the americans. So, back again to square one !,

you live in another world ignoring all the threats made to Israel from her neighbors. Tell us who originally owned the land you are occupying? Your logic is a one way street into a dead end. No country has ever had to give back land they won in battle- and certainly not aggressive battle. If there is ever a country that has its rights- historical and recent, it is Israel. You are a pouting, jumping anti-Israeli who has little insight to a country's independence and right to defend herself. If you really feel for arab downtrodden, help the 90% of poor arabs who really live in a world of hate- inculcated by their despotic leaders. The more you write, the more intelligent people laugh at your diatribes and self-fueling hatreds. If you can't really help people, save the koalas!

I agree: "..Iran is not about to drop a bomb on Israel.." They will just pass it on ... Why should they endanger their beloved Iran if they can use the two idiots ready to sacrifice themselves...Hezbollah and Hamas. And later the world...

war. Illegally annexed East Jerusalem. Illegally instituted Israeli Civil Law in occupied territories. Illegally prevented civilians in Gaza from escaping a war zone by closing all the crossings, including those with Egypt, under the 2004 agreement. Forget the fact that Israel has 223 UNSC resolutions against it. Forget the fact that Israel has NEVER lived within it's actual borders in the whole of it's 61 years. http://tinyurl.com/y8ewves/myths-mis-conceptions-propaganda/#who-is-being-wiped-off-the-map

There is something I can't understand: why don't you Israeli elect Gideon Levy prime-minister? He wouldn't even need a cabinet! He could be minister of everything since he knows everything. Although I would rather see him ruling Iran. It would be much better for Israel and Jews all over the world

Israel does not face any so-called 'existential' threat. Iran firing missiles would invite immediate and decisive military retaliation by the US and allies, so it won't be doing that. Israel will get a missile defence system from the USA, which will render the missile threat pretty meaningless. The threat from Hamas and Hizbullah is limited, when they're facing an army of Israel's size. There is not a military threat on the horizon from surrounding Arab countries. Right-wing nationalist, demagogic leaders always excel at exaggerating ethno-religious and other imagined threats. By whipping up a storm, they appeal to the innate prejudice of the unthinking, poorly-qualified mass and thus guarantee their rule. Netanyahu is really just a pale version of Milosevic or Karadzic, the same kind of blinkered, ethno-centric vision, justification and paranoia.

Surely Gideon is joking ? Not joking ? Oh, blind then. Not blind ? Ah , must be believing in Father Christmas then ? Do you remember Hitler with Chekoslovakia, Austria, Poland... Ahmadinedjad with Lebanon,.......Hisbolah, Hamas, Syria.... Hitler with Japan ? Ahmadinedjad with Turkey ? Am I just dreaming ? Just like Gideon ! dreaming.

"Following his laughable idiocy Israel doesn`t even need army,because there is no threat." That'd be your laughable strawman... "Everything is peaceful,rose with a bright future .." Not as long as Israel keeps taking othyer folk's territory illegally. "Ahmadinejad`s threat of annihilation of Israel was not meant seriously." A regime is not a nation/country/state "Tear down the wall Israel.." Built on Israeli soil only... " and dissolve the army.You don`t need them because Levy says that you are safe.Sad to see a Jew take on his own country and put at risk his own people." If you say so, he didn't... "Another leftist at work..." You're a 'leftist'?

They trip themselves up quite a lot. http://tinyurl.com/y8ewves/myths-mis-conceptions-propaganda/#within-frontiers-approved-by-the-General-Assembly-of-the-United-Nations-in-its-Resolution-of-November-29-1947

by downplaying everything except your own perverted agenda....Forget the ship with found rockets...Forget who is behind it...Forget that hate is taught through television in Turkey...forget that a leader denies the Holocaust happened...Forget that foreign nations with extreme human rights abuses sit in judgement of Israel under supposed legitimacy of the UN...These are all just words..just like yours...right...

Gideon, you should been more astute! In '46-48 the zionist cabal screamed to the world that they were about to be swallowed alive by the Arab armies. It was a lie. Ben Gurion's diaries letter prove that he KNEW otherwise. In '56 the same story. In 67-68, again the same story - this time even the military analysts of the world laughed at the Israelis. Bibi's doing it again. He needs a pretext to attack Iran and gain a place in history together with Olmert. He's no less a jerk, anyway.

it is remarkable that for the first time, the PM has publicly stated that there are 1.5 million arabs in Judea andd Samaria rather than the fraudulent number used by tzipi, olmert and sharon of 2.5 million. they and their experts relied on artificial PA numbers created as a psychological tool by arafat. the demographic threat might have been a concern 20 years ago. policies such as two states for two peoples are old hat. wake up gideon not a levy!! www.israeldemography.com

Netanyahu's whole elction campaign was based on sowing fear and making the Israeli people afraid. Having come second in that election and becoming Prime Minister with a coalition with such disparate views Netanyahu formed another cabinet to run the country. Netanyahu now has to sow fear to ensure that any dissent of him and his government can be shouted down with cries of traitor. Problem is although it might work with Israelis it doesn't with the rest of Planet Earth. Hence the deal to enrich Iranian uranium.

Netanyahu is not sowing fear to ensure his reelection, nor to further his party's interests. He is sowing fear for Zionism. He sows fear in order to avoid talking to the Palestinians and other Arabs. In the end, talking to the Palestinians can only lead to "concessions" that are at loggerheads with his conviction that all of Palestine belongs to the Jewish people.

Obviously sending G.Lvey to sleep pr calling him an idot is not of very rational. Before doubting the brain of G.L why dont you use yours to understand his article? The conclusion that "since Israel is strong it has to dissolve its army" is either demagogic or lack of rational clarity' (to be more polite than you are). The reason that we are strong is precisely because we have a strong army. Any bright small child would understand that this is what G.Levy wrote.

The truth is that there IS danger, life is dangerous. But you have to consider the danger inherent in living in fear too. If one thing's certain in life it's that you know you're going to die. If you spend your entire life thinking about how to postpone it instead of just enjoying what you have while you have it, was that life worth living? The secret is in finding a balance between complete hedonism and complete paranoia; permitting oneself to enjoy giving as well as receiving. Like judicious use of the hot and the cold faucets in the shower. In today's Israel, if you're not a winner it goes without saying that you're a loser. The holocaust was over 64 years ago, folks. There's no need to greet each dawn as though it might kill us.

Responsible men tell the truth as did Churchill when others like Mr. Levy were asleep. Even though the latter considers himself a seer, he is not. Talk is cheap and Mr. Levy's is irresponsible.

Of course Gideon is right, the civilized and democratic world has turned against Israel. Not really surprising when the new world order defines a democratic state as being compliant with International Law and the Geneva Conventions, and the concept of a God given right to indulge in occupation, colonialism and oppression is something that went out of fashion several centuries ago!

Following his laughable idiocy Israel doesn't even need army,because there is no threat.Everything is peaceful,rose with a bright future where Jews love Hanyieh,Iranians love Jews and where Nasrallah says with a big smile that his declaration We'll never recognize Israel was a joke and Ahmadinejad's threat of annihilation of Israel was not meant seriously. Tear down the wall Israel and dissolve the army.You don't need them because Levy says that you are safe.Sad to see a Jew take on his own country and put at risk his own people. Another leftist at work...

Netanyahu, Listen to Gideon Levy. He knows 100% (For sure for sure) that Iran will not drop the bomb. 0% doubt - he knowns - does not matter what Iranian people said to their people in their own language. We all know why Gideon would say it, Amira would say the same. It all boils down to having 100% trusting and believing their friends. If you can't trust your friends who can you trust ? - so yes, no bomb -maybe you should talk to Gideon and he can advise if the President of Iran told him to verbally , by email or he judged it from simply his mannerism - all is possible.

has dispersed the fog of israel's propaganda efforts; which for decades had successfully hidden the truth. gone are the days when the only news the west had about the mid-east conflict came from israel. bibi hasn't come to terms with that yet, and being a right wing zionist, he may not ever. the idf however, became acutely aware of it during its assault on lebanon in 2006; which is why it kept reporters out of gaza during its ground invasion...and why it made sure that NO idf soldiers carried a cell phone, camera, etc, when it entered gaza.

There seems to be a personal bias against Bibi on the part of Mr Levy. It seems to me that the hallicinating is being done by Mr. Levy. History has a way of repeating itself and those who do not learn from it will pay the price.

"Hezbollah during the second lebanon war was firing rockets at amonia tanks in haifa.." They were? " and they just barely missed which would have caused a disaster" Maybe they weren't. "Hamas has fired many rockets at chemical facilities in southern israel and was firing rockets at sensitive sites like ashdod port" They'd be the rockets that mostly hit nothing of any consequence what so ever, I guess. "The left doesn`t understand the gravity of the threat" The real threat is, that Israel believing it's own propaganda......

as usual you're right on the money! Please, keep it coming. And thanks much.

Hezbollah during the second lebanon war was firing rockets at amonia tanks in haifa and they just barely missed which would have caused a disaster. Hamas has fired many rockets at chemical facilities in southern israel and was firing rockets at sensitive sites like ashdod port. Now iran is bringing hamas rockets that can hit dimona and ben gurion airport. So lets not make it like there isn't a threat. Iran is putting together a shia crescent from iran to sadr in iraq to syria to hezbollah. Iran is arming hamas and hezbollah to the teeth. And iran is smuggling in weapons through sudan. Iran is expanding its reach all the time. The left doesn't understand the gravity of the threat.

about tv series. nobody watched until israeli fm reactioned.also turkish tv series extremly stupid about love and idiotic dialogues.worse than soup operas.this gideon levy realistic jewish person.nobody nukes nobody. jewish rooted ahmedinejad (citation needed) wont harm israel. he declared himself enemy of zionism.

.....why stop now? Because the internet allows ordinary people to check the scaremonger's 'facts'.