Why Israel Wants a War with Iran (w/ Gideon Levy) | Chris Hedges Report

Gideon Levy believes Israel’s rampant militarism has infected the minds of its entire population. Without an impossible reversal, the Jewish state's destructive warpath will rage on.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

As the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran intensifies, the justifications for its outbreak grow increasingly murky, shifting between nuclear fears, regime change, and regional security concerns. In this interview, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy joins Chris Hedges to cut through the official narratives and examine the deeper ideological forces driving Israel’s long-standing push toward confrontation with Iran under Benjamin Netanyahu.

Levy argues that the war cannot be understood purely through strategy or geopolitics, but instead through a deeply embedded national mindset. “War is always the first option, not the last one in Israel,” he explains, pointing to a political culture that consistently defaults to military solutions while sidelining diplomacy. This helps explain why lessons from past conflicts—from Gaza to Lebanon—have failed to meaningfully alter Israeli policy, even when those campaigns produced questionable results.

At the same time, the human consequences have been dire. As the region destabilizes further, Levy emphasizes the sheer scale of displacement caused by Israeli military actions, noting that “six million human beings…were expelled, uprooted, displaced from their homes.” In other words, the war’s impact extends far beyond its stated objectives, raising urgent moral and strategic questions.

Levy goes on to discuss Israeli society itself. He delivers a scathing critique of the country’s media landscape, arguing that self-censorship have infected Israeli “open” society. Levy says the press voluntarily “made Israel totally ignorant about what’s going on on our behalf in Gaza,” insulating the public from the realities of its own military actions.

As the conflict with Iran threatens to spiral into a wider regional war, Levy remains deeply pessimistic. Without a fundamental shift away from militarism, he suggests, Israel risks entrenching itself in an endless cycle of violence—one whose consequences will ultimately extend far beyond the Middle East.

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Host

Chris Hedges

Executive Producer:

Max Jones

Intro:

Thomas Hedges

Transcript:

Thomas Hedges

Crew:

Sofia Menemenlis and Thomas Hedges

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Transcript

INTERVIEW

Chris

For four decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been lobbying the United States to go to war with Iran. Previous administrations, Republican and Democrat, have refused, in no small part because of fierce opposition within the Pentagon, which did not view Iran as an existential threat and did not project a positive outcome for the United States or its regional allies. Donald Trump, encouraged by his inept negotiating team of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner and fellow real estate developer and golfing partner Steve Witkoff, each fervent Zionists, however, took Israel’s bait. Britain’s national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, who attended the final talks between the United States and Iran, dismissed Kushner and Witkoff as Israeli assets. Joseph Kent, who resigned from his position as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center to protest the war, wrote, in his resignation letter that, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. The public rationale for the war on Iran since it began on February 28th has been protean. Is it to shut down Iran’s nuclear program? Is it to thwart Iran’s ballistic missile program? Is it because the United States carried out preemptive attacks on Iran, as Marco Rubio said, to ensure the safety of U.S. assets once Israel decided to strike? Is it because the Iranian government carried out lethal repression, killing hundreds of anti-government protesters during the massive street protests? Is it regime change? Is it an attempt to shut down Iran’s so-called state-sponsored terrorism? Or are these subterfuges for something else? Certainly Israel and the U.S. seek regime change, but here it appears the United States and Israel may diverge.

Israel also apparently seeks, as in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Lebanon, the disintegration of Iran, the breaking apart of the country into warring ethnic and religious enclaves, the transformation of Iran into a failed state. Persians in Iran constitute roughly 61% of the population, with various minority groups who often suffer state repression making up the remaining 39%. These ethnic groups include Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Balochs, Arabs, and Turkomans, along with religious minorities such as Sunnis, Christians, Baha’i, Zoroastrians, and Jews. The shattering of Iran into antagonistic, ethnic, and religious enclaves would leave Israel as the dominant power in the region, giving it the ability to, if not occupy its neighbors, directly control and subjugate them through proxies, part of a long-held desire for a greater Israel. It would also make it possible for foreign states to control Iranian gas reserves, the second largest in the world, and its oil reserves, 12% of the global total. Now that Israel has the war Netanyahu has dreamed of, what are Israel’s ultimate objectives? How will those objectives be achieved? Is the dream of a greater Israel possible or even realistic? And are the objectives of Israel inimical to the interests and security of the United States? Will the war, rather than see the Iranian regime crushed, spawn something far more deadly, a prolonged regional and perhaps even international conflict, one that will create havoc in the global economy and potentially draw in China and Russia?

Joining me to discuss why the Israeli government has long sought a war with Iran and what it hopes to achieve is the Israeli journalist Gideon Levi. Gideon writes a column for the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that often focuses on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, his latest book is The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe. And you can see an interview I did with Gideon in September 2024 about his book on my YouTube channel entitled “The Looming Catastrophe in the Middle East,” which I guess Gideon turns out to be pretty prescient. But let me, you know far more than I do. Let’s go back, you know Netanyahu, this has been a four decade long project. Why has Netanyahu been so intent upon it? What do you think he hopes to achieve by having drawn the United States and Israel into this war?

Gideon Levy

So first, thank you, Chris, for having me again. It is very hard to find one answer to all the very good questions you raised, because we can’t get into politicians and statesmen’s’ minds. What motivates him? I think that it’s a combination. First of all, we have to look at the mindset, the mindset of Israelis and the mindset of Netanyahu, which in many ways reflects the Israeli mindset, namely always to look for an enemy, always to feel persecuted, always to victimize, always to feel we are the David and there is some Goliath who is going to exterminate us and to push us to the ocean. Iran paid its share because Iran, ever since this regime is in power, didn’t stop threatening Israel, only in words, but in very tough words. I mean, there is the big Satan and the small Satan. They kept on saying it day and night. And that’s a good excuse or justification, if you want, to perceive Iran as a danger. The question is, was it or is it a real existential danger? Even if nuclear Iran is an existential danger. That’s an open question. Now, why did he go to this war? It’s a combination. You many look for the answer in his personal ambitions and personal world, namely he’s facing charges in court, he’s facing elections, he wants to leave his heritage in history and failed until now, this was for him a claim to fame. But I would give him more credit than this. And I think that he really believed Iran is an existential danger to Israel. And the only problem is that in his world and in most of the Israelis world, the only answer for danger is the military answer. There is no other answer. It’s beyond the scope. It’s beyond any place even to take it into account. War is always the first option, not the last one in Israel. And you saw it in Gaza and you see it now. And last sentence, two and a half years we conducted one of the ugliest wars in Gaza. What did Israel achieve there? The goals were very similar: regime change, the fighting against the demon (?). Is Israel more secure now? Did Israel achieve its goals in Gaza? As I think that we didn’t, why not to draw a lesson for this? Isn’t it enough? I mean, Gaza is not Iran. Hamas is not the regime in Iran. This is a total different scale. We failed with Hamas. So why do we think we will succeed there? But for Netanyahu, it’s a different mindset.

Chris

And I mean, you’re right that this is, and of course we’re watching this massive assault on Southern Lebanon at the same time, 1 million Lebanese displaced. It appears from a distance that what they’re doing to Southern Lebanon is attempting to replicate the complete obliteration of communities and dwellings as they did in Gaza. And Iran, unlike Hezbollah, unlike Hamas, has been able to inflict damage on Israel. Can we begin to use the word overreach? Is Israel just going too far?

Gideon Levy

I think Israel went too far with Gaza already. It doesn’t start now, it starts in Gaza. It was an overreaction out of proportion on any criteria, legal, moral, and practical. And now it’s just a continuous, again, it’s the same mindset. Right now when we are talking, Chris, there are six million human beings in the Middle East, who were expelled, uprooted, displaced from their homes by Israel. Six million. One million in Lebanon, two million in Gaza, three million in Iran. I want to stop for a moment and ask, does it make sense? Is it acceptable? Six million people. Let’s put aside all the circumstances. But does anything justify replacing the uprooting six million people at a time who have no alternative? In Gaza, for sure not. In Gaza, they lost everything. In Lebanon, part of them lost everything. In Iran, I guess they’ll be able to get back to their homes, but what is it? And for Israel, everything justified the goal.

And there are even no questions, neither in the Israeli society. Not only there are no questions or doubts, it’s illegitimate. I guess you paid attention to this North Korean figure that 93% of the Israelis support, the Jewish Israelis support this war in Iran, 93%. Give me one example of one subject, one topic that you’ll get, you’ll reach such an majority in a democracy. 93%, that’s North Korea or maybe Belarus. This cannot be in a democracy that 93% of people will think the same. But in Israel, when it comes to war, it’s always reaching a majority. And when it comes to diplomacy, to compromises, to peace negotiations, to peace treaties, it’s so much harder to gain a majority.

Chris

You wrote a column, I think it was titled, Everyone Here or Everyone in Israel Has Gone Insane, but you’ve also written quite scathingly about the Israeli media as just a propaganda machine for war.

Gideon Levy

Even worse than this. I think the big shame was in the Gaza war. Then it reached really the bottom of its last remains of dignity and professionalism. Gaza, as you know, was not presented in Israeli media for two and a half years. Nothing. Except for a few small outlets. You had no idea anyone in Kansas saw more of Gaza than anyone in Tel Aviv. Now, they did so, and this is the criminal side, they did so voluntarily. It’s not because of political pressure by the government, not by the secret services, not by the military. Israel has still a free media. But this free media has decided that for commercial reasons, we are not going to bother our readers or viewers and we are not going to let them know anything which might bother them. And 1,000 babies killed in Gaza is something that most of Israelis don’t want to know. So we will not tell them. And 70,000 victims in Gaza is something that our viewers don’t want to see, so we will not show it to them. And this is the big betrayal of Israeli media. Now it repeats itself, now in Iran, but in a different scale because in the war in Iran we know very little and I think you Americans know also very little. Nobody really knows what’s going on there. We hear all kinds of official announcements but what is really taking place on the ground we don’t know. So now we are also in darkness but the real moral darkness was the behavior of Israeli media throughout the war in Gaza. This is unforgettable. They made Israel totally ignorant about what’s going on on our behalf in Gaza, and they made Israel live in peace with everything that happened there.

Chris

Ilan Pappé wrote a piece several years ago where he also blamed the Israeli education system. He actually called it a form of indoctrination. It wasn’t just the media in his eyes.

Gideon Levy

He is right, but I think that for the good and for the bad, the media has much more influence than the education system. Look, I am a graduate of Israeli education system in different times, obviously. But when I look forward, you know that until the age of 20, I never heard the word Nakba. I had no idea what it is. I saw the ruins in Tel Aviv all over Israel. I never asked, what are those ruins? Who are their owners, where are they? What happened to them? Why aren’t they with their properties? Nobody told us. We were told all kinds of things by the education system. At this stage, it’s really the education system. We’re told all kinds of things which basically conducted or concluded few basic values that every Israeli gets with the milk of his mother, namely that we are the biggest victims in the world, that we are the David against the Goliath, that we are the chosen people. Yes, we are the chosen people and therefore we have the right to do whatever we want. And that the Palestinians were born to kill and that’s the only thing in their mind is how to kill us and to push us away from here. And when you are brought up in such an atmosphere with all those values, add to the fact that in my childhood, it was a few years after the Holocaust, so all those things were even more intensified. You get a very special Israeli, namely an Israeli who is totally convinced in anything that his army and his state is doing, who is not ready to get any criticism and immediately labels any criticism as anti-Semitism, who thinks that international law does not apply to Israel because Israel is a special case, who believes that Israel is a victim and there is no other victim like Israel in the world. And that’s a very dangerous—and obviously that we are the chosen people.

All this mindset is a very unhealthy mindset and you see the outcome now when Israelis live in peace with Gaza and they will live in peace now with Lebanon.

Chris

Let me ask about Iran. The reports, certainly in the American press, is that there is a divergence between the Trump administration and Netanyahu. You know, Trump is mercurial and changes his mind by the minute, of course, but that it appears that he would like a way, an exit, he’d like a way out. This is not going well for the global economy or for the U.S., frankly, or probably even for Israel, but that the assumption is that the Netanyahu government would like to—they can’t do to Iran what they’ve done to Gaza or what they’re doing to Southern Lebanon because it’s too big. It’s the size of Western Europe, but they can obliterate its infrastructure and much of its urban areas to create a kind of failed state, as I mentioned in the introduction. Is that the goal? Do you think that is the Israeli goal?

Gideon Levy

I think the Israeli goal is about Iran is quite irrelevant now because whatever Donald Trump will decide, Israel will have to follow. Israel in this stage, Israel has no other choice and no other capability. Even from the military narrow perspective, Israel does not have the capability to conduct a war over Iran without the American Air Force and the American army. It’s just impossible even when it comes to something simple like, or not simple like fueling the jets. We need America. We need America for political support, diplomatic support, economic support, military support, supply, army, everything. Israel cannot go on with this war in Iran. And I don’t think that even Netanyahu will even try. Once Donald Trump, you see already when Trump say what he say, one day ago about the possibility of ending the war very soon, Netanyahu kept silent. He didn’t say a word. And if he said something, it was almost supportive. He knows he has no other choice. What is more problematic is continuing the war in Lebanon because I guess that Donald Trump couldn’t care less about Lebanon and he might let Israel continue in Lebanon. And that’s why but as about the war in Iran, it all depends on Donald Trump.

Chris

Hezbollah doesn’t have the ability to inflict the damage on Israel that Iran has.

Gideon Levy

This is true, but they can continue with the war of attrition and Israel can again and started already to occupy more and more pieces of Lebanon and to dest oy parts of Beirut. We have been in this scenario so many times, never did Israel gain anything out of it. Here it really repeats itself, detail after detail, identical again, again and again and never learn and never, and always think that now it’s the time and this time it will be once and for all. And the only once and for all is, I wrote once, sorry for quoting myself, the only once and for all is the Israeli occupation. That’s the only thing which is once and for all.

Chris

We should be clear that Israel occupied Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

Gideon Levy

18 years, sure, 18 years since we went out and nothing was solved, not only for once and for all, even not for few years.

Chris

Well, was even worse Gideon because it created Hezbollah. That’s how Hezbollah was created.

Gideon Levy

Exactly, exactly. And Hamas was also partly created by Israel. It’s always this idea that we can change regimes and it always ends up with a worse regime. It’s always about the assassinations when we are sure that if we’ll just assassinate 12 leaders or 20 leaders, the problem will be solved. And it’s always leaders to worse successors.

Chris

Yeah. When I first got to Israel in 1988, there was a war against Faisal Husseini. I mean, imagine this Palestinian aristocrat. And then, course, Fatah and Arafat. And then taking out, I knew Abd al-Aziz Rantisi, you may have known him as well. Taking out these scholars, Rantisi was brilliant, whatever you think of his ideology and Sheikh Yassin, these were the co-founders of Hammas, and you end up with Yahya Al-Sinwar. So I think this is the point that the history has shown that these targeted assassinations, I knew Nizah Rayyan as well, they don’t result in more moderation. They spawn people who are more more fanatical.

Gideon Levy

I don’t get into the moral and legal question of the assassinations, even though it’s very hard to ignore it. Because by the end of the day, those are murders. And though this is a behavior of a crime family, and the media collaborates with it, obviously, but let’s put it aside. What is the utility of it? What does come out of it? And the amazing thing is that it repeats itself systematically, and no lesson is due. Again and again. No, this time it will succeed. And it fails and will try again. Like a gambler in a casino who is sure the next time it will go better. And it doesn’t.

Chris

Well, eventually gamblers go bankrupt, usually. At what point does Israel pay an existential price for this kind of behavior?

Gideon Levy

I think the real danger right now and any friend of Israel or anyone who cares about Israel should concentrate now on what’s going on in your country, in the United States. Because in very few years time, we will face a different United States when it comes to Israel. And it will be dramatic. And I think all kinds of voices who were not legitimate in the United States until recently, are becoming louder and louder. And all kinds of questions are being raised about the taxpayers’ money, about the reason for all this, about the fact that not always is it clear who is the superpower, Israel or the United States. All kinds of questions come up now in both parties. This is so interesting. It’s not only one party, in both parties.

And as I saw that Biden was the last Zionist president, I think in many ways, Trump will be the last president who will take into account Israel. think the next ones, whoever it will be, for them Israel will be in a much lower priority. And then Israel really faces a challenge which it never did. Because Europe is boiling against Israel, but they don’t dare to do anything because of the fear of the American administration and the rest of the world, obviously, and the rest of the world, Israel is already a perished state. And without the United States, Israel will face a situation which it never faced before, which might be an existential threat in my view, more than the Iranian nuclear bomb.

Chris

I think one of the things that’s so disturbing, of course, they shut down the student encampments which protested the genocide. I was in the encampment in Columbia and Princeton, you know, on a rough estimate, 20 or 30% of those students were Jewish. So they shut down that protest of the genocide, but you see rising up on the far right a very raw anti-Semitism, a real anti-Semitism. It’s not it’s of Israel. It’s criticism of Jews.

Gideon Levy

Absolutely and you know about it much more than I do. just know that those students in those campuses are the next Secretary of State, the next Secretary of Defense, the next President, the next diplomats of the United States, the decision makers of the United States. And imagine yourself that this will be their mindset. And Israel will face them and it can happen within very few years. We are not talking about long processes because I think the process is already happening now. Once Donald Trump will not be in the White House, I think Israel will really be in problem.

Chris

Talk about the censorship in your long career as a journalist. There’s very heavy censorship over Iranian strikes. You’re not allowed to film. It’s completely criminalized. Have you ever seen censorship like this within Israel?

Gideon Levy

So first of all, censorship in Israel in the 50s and the 60s was 100 times worse. Yes, because the scope of issues that we had to send to the censors was nothing to compare with today. Today it’s really more or less only military issues. In those years, the energy policy of Israel we had to send to the censors. The immigration policy of Israel, I mean… Nothing to compare those who many times long to the good beautiful Israel forget that Israel in the first two or three decades was very problematic in terms of democracy. You know the teachers Arab Israeli teachers had to be approved by the Shabbat by the Israeli Secret Service teachers in the Arab schools, so let’s not think that now it’s the worst. The worst was many years ago. Secondly, I would like to argue with you that the censorship, as disturbing as it is, is not the main problem of Israeli freedom of speech. The problem is the self-censorship, which is much worse because to self-censorship there is no resistance. Look, let me be personal for a moment. I used to be often on Israeli TV, at least once, twice a week, as a panelist. Ever since the war in Gaza started, was twice. In two and a half years, I was twice on Israeli TV. This is not censorship, neither by the government nor by the army. Nobody told them not to bring me to the studio. They chose to do so because they know that this might make some viewers annoyed or whatever. This is the real censorship. When you do it by yourself for all kinds of commercial or because you are a coward and you censor yourself, I see the main danger. What they censoring now is mainly now the location of the rockets, of the missiles. I can live with it. I mean, first of all, Israel is the only democracy in the world with censorship at all. But I wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t overestimate this. Pay attention also to the ridiculous role that the journalists are playing. You know that in every, almost every report on TV, they are proud to say it was approved by the censorship. What are you so proud about? Nobody asked them to say so, you don’t need to say this was approved. It doesn’t exist. But the journalists are so eager to show that they are so patriotic and faithful to the system and don’t raise questions and don’t create any kind of doubts that they feel they need to say: ook how nice we behave. Look how faithful we are. For me, it’s shameful.

Chris

I have to say the US press is not far behind. Let me ask about the consequences of the war on Iran, in particular the targeted assassinations carried out against the Iranian leadership. What do you expect to come from this? You know, one has to assume that there would be a pretty concerted effort on the part of the Iranians at payback.

Gideon Levy

Yes, and they have many motivations to do so. The question is only their capability. If this regime will continue, I have no doubt that they will make many more efforts now to get nuclear weapons. Because once they will have the bomb, this war and many other wars will not take place. Nobody dares to attack North Korea. Nobody dares to attack Pakistan. Nobody will dare to attack Israel — Iran, sorry. If Iran has a, that’s obvious. Yeah.

Chris

I just want to interject to say that in the Middle East it was the lesson of Muammar Gaddafi who gave up his nuclear program to appease the West and look what happened to him.

Gideon Levy

Absolutely. And Nelson Mandela also gave up some capabilities and rightly so, but in Israel, nobody thinks about it, obviously. But you asked about the assassinations and here I must tell you that it follows a long, long, long policy of assassinating as a strategy, didn’t start in Iran. It starts with the Palestinians in the seventies. We murdered any possible political leader, not only military leaders, people like Ghassan Kanafani who was a poet. We murdered him in Beirut in 72. What danger is from a poet not to speak about any alternative leaderships, , I mean, you name them. We tried to kill anyone Arafat got some kind of immunity, impurity, and he survived. And even about his end, we don’t know everything. But this is a strategy of Israel. And Israel is very proud about it. I remember, you are young, so you don’t remember it, but I remember that Bulgaria used to send all kinds of secret agents in Europe who would poison all kinds of regime resistance with the umbrellas, poisoned umbrellas in the streets. It was the only thing. I guess Bulgaria never was proud of it. Israel is so proud, for example, on the operation, the beeper operation. Yeah, when...

Chris

This is what decapitated Hezbollah. Or I don’t know if it decapitated it, it certainly, and they killed Nasrella h as well, but you’re referring to these pagers that, I don’t know, what is it? It was hundreds of people, right, were affected by these exploding pagers.

Gideon Levy

Hundreds of people lost their organs, not hundreds of people were killed, but hundreds of people lost their hands, their legs, God knows. Hundreds. In Israel, it’s a source of pride. And you know, as an Israeli who cares about Israel, it makes me worry because this is not a healthy atmosphere to live in. When you are so proud about assassinations or about this page, a cold page, how do you call the papers? Page cold. The pages. Where does it lead us to? What will be remembered from us? That we kill?

Chris

Well, didn’t Yeshayahu Leibowitz exactly paint where it leads to?

Gideon Levy

Yeah, but who listens? Who listens to him? You read today what he said, it’s word by word what he had foreseen. And in many ways, it’s getting worse. And Leibowitz was really, they demonized him, they dehumanized him, ridiculed him. And look what a giant, he was a real biblical prophet. But you know—

Chris

We should just be clear for people who don’t know his work. He talked about the poison of occupation and what it would do internally to Israel to its respect for human rights, its democracy, by essentially training a population to be prison guards and undercover agents and assassination squads. And of course, he was stunningly prophetic.

Gideon Levy

And we are dealing with an Orthodox Jew, a great intellectual who paid the price for those positions. But you know, we are so far away. Today you can hardly, today, if there was a label, which nobody would even listen to him and nobody will even cover what he says. At least then whenever he spoke, he was in the media. There was some respect to what he says today. He will be totally is dismissed.

Chris

How do you see—it’s very dangerous to predict anything given the mercurial nature of the Trump administration—but where do you see the conflict going? The Iranians have twice negotiated in the 12-day war last June. Their negotiating teams have been assassinated. The moderates have been assassinated. I think the message has been delivered clearly to the Iranians that there are no exits, that they at this point must inflict as much pain as possible. Many people argue that it doesn’t really matter what Trump or Netanyahu want. The Iranians are going to make their adversaries pay, and of course, asymmetrically through crippling the regional and the global economy. Where do you see it going?

Gideon Levy

So first of all, it depends much on the capabilities of the Iranians, not only on their ambitions. Sure, Iran will want to take revenge and how, but the question is if they will have the capability because still they are beaten now. It’s not something that they will recover within a weeks or months to their same power.

And the question is for the long run, first of all, they will have to make their choice if they want to continue with the same regime, with the same policy. I’m not sure this regime is so good for Iran. I’m not sure. And therefore, it’s really about them to decide. Because between liberal democracy and this fundamentalistic regime, there is a large scope.

They can change also, you know, gradually, not only in a revolution of one day become Norway or Denmark. They can also go gradually. And it depends much on them now. We are still facing a good chance that the war like we face now will repeat itself in one, two years again. And as it seems now, this is the most probable scenario. And this will not make people think, why do we those suppose if it leads us to repeat them again and again, why not to try something else? Why not to give diplomacy chance? But you know, you can whistle in the darkness, not much more than that. Same with the Palestinians. I believe that any of those conflicts could have been solved by diplomacy.

Finally, we are dealing with human beings. In our side, in the other side, everything could have been solved in diplomacy. I don’t believe that war is inevitable. I really don’t believe so. I know I sound maybe disconnected from reality, but I know one thing, we never really tried.

Chris

Do you see that kind of a change? I mean, when Israel seems to become more messianic by the minute, the settlers have seized control in a way that was not true when I was in Israel, within the military, within, of course, the government, within the secret services. The settlers were always pariahs. One sees Israel not drifting towards a government that you know, would embrace diplomacy but becoming more more fanatic.

Gideon Levy

Absolutely. And therefore I’m so skeptical and pessimistic. I can’t see any scenario in which Israel changes its policy because the problem is that it’s not about the leadership. It’s not now about the people. And the majority of Israelis support wars, support apartheid, support occupation, and don’t want to see any change and don’t believe in any change.

So it’s far beyond who is going to replace Netanyahu. We have a problem with a people who reach the point in which it’s becoming more militaristic than ever, more religious than ever, more messiah than ever. And those processes are very hard to stop.

Chris

Are those processes suicidal for Israel?

Gideon Levy

I don’t want to sound too dramatic, I mean suicidal? I never thought that the question of Israel will exist was ever a relevant question. The only question is what kind of Israel? And Israel can turn into a place that neither you nor me will want to have anything with it.

Israel really exists, it is strong and I guess that any American administration will still not lose totally Israel even though I’m sure the support will be decreasing dramatically as I said. But the question is what for? I mean if we turn into, are still wonderful (?) in Israel Chris, wonderful people which really I can just be amazed how they all still stay here, even though some are living, but they are really wonderful (?). They are a minority and they delegitimized, unfortunately. And the tendency is a very negative one, demographically and politically and socially. You see how things are getting worse and worse and worse. The settlers take over, the Orthodox take over.

The army that I was fighting against decades ago is much worse army now, with all the settlers in all kinds of high positions. And the government is a real fascist government. I can’t find any other way. But you see all the other systems, the legal system, the education system. You see how system after system, they change.

How do you stop it? I wish I knew. We don’t have the leadership for this and we don’t have the people for this.

Chris

Well, your voice, I mean, you can’t discount, for those of us on the outside, how important you are, Amira Hass and a few others.

I mean, that’s where hope is. And I just, you I lived in Israel. I was overseas for 20 years. I’m fiercely critical of the genocide and the apartheid. And however, and this reminds me when you talked about these islands, the closest friends I made were actually Israeli, left-wing Israelis, but Israeli. And they were literate and they had a conscience, as you do, and they had the courage to speak out.

So yes, that’s, you know, whatever flickers of hope, that’s where they lie. Thank you, Gideon. And I want to thank Sophia, Thomas, and Max, who produced the show. You can find me at chrisedges.substack.com.

Gideon Levy

Thank you, Chris, for having me. Always appreciate it.

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Photos

UN-ISRAEL-NETANYAHU

Israel’s foreign minister Benjamin Netanyahu blaims Lebanon and Syria for unrest in the Middle East during statements at the United Nations Security Council here 22 September 1986. Netanyahu claimed Syrian backed rebels were responsible for the attacks on UNIFIL forces in Lebanon which resulted in the recent deaths of French soldiers. (Photo by Bob PEARSON / AFP) (Photo by BOB PEARSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Israelis gather in Tel Aviv to celebrate the ceasefire agreement reached in Gaza

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - OCTOBER 11: US President Donald Trump’s Special Representative for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, and Trump’s son-in-law and former adviser Jared Kushner attend the demonstration at Hostages Square, in Tel Aviv, Israel on October 11, 2025. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Kharg Island

Unwanted natural gas is burned off at an oil field on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf, off the coast of Iran, 13th March 2000. (Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)

Fire breaks out in Shahran oil depot following US and Israeli attacks in Tehran

TEHRAN, IRAN - MARCH 8: Fire breaks out at the Shahran oil depot after US and Israeli attacks, leaving numerous fuel tankers and vehicles in the area unusable in Tehran, Iran on March 8, 2026. (Photo by Hassan Ghaedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT

TOPSHOT - Smoke rises from a building destroyed in Israeli airstrike at the Bureij camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on January 12, 2025, as the genocide continues. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP) (Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)

LEBANON-ISRAEL-IRAN-US-WAR

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli air strike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Dayr Seryan on March 25, 2026. Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war when Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

TOPSHOT-LEBANON-ISRAEL-IRAN-WAR

TOPSHOT - Displaced family members sit around a fire outside their tent along the seafront in Beirut on March 18, 2026. Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on March 2 when militant group Hezbollah launched rockets towards Israel to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israel responded with intense strikes on Lebanon that have killed at least 968 people and displaced over a million, according to local authorities, and by launching ground operations in the south. (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP via Getty Images)

Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress begins in Vienna

VIENNA, AUSTRIA - JUNE 13: Israeli historian Professor Ilan Pappe gives a speech during the Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress, organized for the first time by anti-Zionist Jews, in Vienna, the capital of Austria on June 13, 2025. (Photo by Askin Kiyagan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

President Trump Departs White House En Route To Florida For The Weekend

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 16: President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn before boarding Marine One at the White House on January 16, 2026 in Washington, DC. The President is expected to travel to Florida where he will remain for the weekend. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

LEBANON-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-HEZBOLLAH

A large picture of Naim Qassem (C), current leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, is displayed near another of the group’s slain longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Israel’s assassination of Nasrallah and other group leaders, in the town of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr near Tyre in southern Lebanon on September 27, 2025. (Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT / AFP) (Photo by MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli Forces Invade Lebanon

Israeli soldiers in an armoured vehicle on the streets of the Lebanese port city of Sidon during the Israeli army invasion named “Operation Peace for the Galilee” in Sidon, Lebanon, in June 1982. (Photo by Bryn Colton/Getty Images)

Picture shows Faisal al-Husseini, Director of the

JERUSALEM,- AUGUST 30: Picture shows Faisal al-Husseini, Director of the Center for Arab Studies in East Jeruslem, leaving the Israeli High Court in Jerusalem 30 August 1988 after it decided 30 August against Husseini’s appeal that court hearings concerning the administrative detention order against him, should be held in open court. Faisal al-Husseini, the top PLO official for Jerusalem died in Kuwait 31 May 2001 of a massive heart attack. (Photo credit should read FEINBLATT/AFP via Getty Images)

Yasser Arafat At The 1974 Arab League Summit

Yasser Arafat (1929 - 2004), Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, attends the Arab League summit in Rabat, Morocco, 1974. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Palestinian Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, s

GAZA CITY, -: Palestinian Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, spokesman of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, gestures during an interview with AFP 02 November 2003 in Gaza City. AFP PHOTO/Mahmud HAMS (Photo credit should read MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

Palestinian Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, s

GAZA CITY, -: Palestinian Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, spokesman of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, gestures during an interview with AFP 02 November 2003 in Gaza City. Al-Rantisi vowed to continue the resistance but said that his movement could discuss in the forthcoming meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qorei keeping away Palestinian and Israeli civilians from the “misfortunes of war”. AFP PHOTO/Mahmud HAMS (Photo credit should read MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-INAUGURATION

US President Joe Biden (L) and President-elect Donald Trump arrive for the inauguration ceremony where Donald Trump will sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. (Photo by Melina MARA / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

Columbia University Issues Deadline For Gaza Encampment To Vacate Campus

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 29: Students/demonstrators lock arms to guard potential authorities against reaching fellow protestors who barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall, an academic building which has been occupied in past student movements,, and name it after a Palestinian child allegedly killed by the Israeli military on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)

Muammar al-Qaddafi at Arab Summit in Tripoli

Muammar al-Qaddafi of Libya joins Arab political leaders from Algeria, Syria, the Palestine Liberation Organization and South Yemen in Tripoli during a summit for the creation of the “Firmness Front”. (Photo by Alain Nogues/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

LEBANON-LITERATURE

Picture taken at Dar al-Fan gallery in Beirut in 1971 shows from L to R: Lebanese novelist Emily Nasrallah, Beirut’s Pen Club president, writer and researcher Jamil Jabre, novelist Halim Barakat, the late Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani and Lebanese novelist Yussef Habshi al-Ashqar. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

LEIBOWITZ-JERUSALEM

Picture dated February 1994, shows Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 91, Israel’s most famous philosopher and critic of the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Leibowitz, a controversial figure, died 18 August in Jerusalem. AFP PHOTO/RICKY ROSEN (Photo by RICKY ROSEN / AFP) (Photo by RICKY ROSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Israeli Settlers Establish Illegal Outposts

MAALE ADUMIM, WEST BANK - DECEMBER 09: Israeli settlers dance and sing as they arrive to the hills at the new E1 settlement area on December 9, 2007 near the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim in the West Bank. Right-wing Jewish settlers began attempts to set up 8 new illegal outposts in the West Bank, including in the E1 area which Israel says will link Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

Israeli settlers, escorted by Israeli security forces, raid the city of Hebron in the West Bank

HEBRON, WEST BANK - JANUARY 31: Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli forces, raid the Old City of Hebron in the southern West Bank on January 31, 2026. During the raid, Israeli soldiers were seen taking security measures in the area. (Photo by Amer Shallodi/Anadolu via Getty Images)