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Reprinted from Alternet
I'm Max Blumenthal, for the Real News. We're here at the National Press Club, at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Conference, examining whether the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel is good for America. And I'm here with Gideon Levy. Gideon Levy was the former spokesman for Shimon Peres, former Israeli president, and is now one of the most outspoken journalists in Israel, someone who I would say is a true dissident in Israeli society, and the voice of the voiceless in Israel. People, Israelis who are resisting occupation and resisting apartheid. And we're going to talk to Gideon not only about the U.S. and Israeli special relationship, but also about what's happening in Israeli society right now.
Gideon, you spoke earlier today, and you said that if any -- if you could show any American visiting the Holy Land anything, you would first take them to Hebron. And I think you're referring to H2, the section of the city that is honeycombed with very violent, radical settlers, but is still Palestinian. Why would you show them that area? There's so much to see.
Watch: Gideon Levy and Max Blumenthal discuss the future of Israel-America relations. Full transcript below.
GIDEON LEVY: I would start there because there you get it in a nutshell. There is no other place where you can see the Israeli policy, the Israeli apartheid in the West Bank, in such crystal clear colors. Roads are just separated for Jews and for Palestinians. An empty town, because all the Palestinian inhabitants head to run away. I mean, the settlers terrorized them so much, until most of them, there really remained only those who have no place to go. And you see the tyranny of the settlers, their brutality. They are the most extreme settlers and they are, part of them should be questioned by psychiatrists. I mean, really. And only a very small piece of land. And that's the way it could have -- and it will look, one day -- if this occupation will continue. So you get it in a nutshell.