Thread by @RBrulin

Absolutely AMAZING column in @haaretz today: Gideon Levy says what NOBODY in the US media would EVER dare say: The discourse of #terrorism is pure propaganda & Def Min Gantz is just as much (if not more) a #terrorist as Abbas is: haaretz.com/opinion/.premi…

As Levy writes, it takes extraordinary chutzpah to argue that Israel should not talk to Abbas “because he is a terrorist”: Gantz, he insists, is “much more” of a terrorist than Abbas is, and it is high time Israelis open their eyes to this truth

Levy adds that Yitzhak Rabin too was “more of a “terrorist” than Yassir Arafat”, and goes on to compare the assassination of Kashoggi (a journalist, murdered by Saudi Arabia) and the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani (also a journalist, murdered by Israel)

Levy then focus on the ratio of the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in 2021 to the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians in 2021: 319 to 11. He writes: How can the killers of the 319 be the good guys, while the killers of the 11 are evil terrorists?

Levy concludes: How much more blood will it take for Israelis, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THEIR COUNTRY’S HISTORY, to ask this fundamental question: Who is the terrorist here, and who is fighting for his rights?

What is perhaps most remarkable here is that what Levy writes, in @Haaretz, simply could NEVER be written by a columnist in an American newspaper. The very idea that the term “terrorist” could be used to refer to Israeli policies & officials is, in the IS, completely NONSENSICAL

Something else is remarkable here: Levy makes his case without referring to @ronenbergman’s revelations, in 2018, that very senior Israeli (Dagan! Eitan! Sharon!) officers created & ran a #terrorist group that used car bombs & killed hundreds of civilians in Lebanon in 1980s

@ronenbergman This is noteworthy because these revelations are the CLEAREST example of Israeli #terrorism that we know: car bombs, in marketplaces, in busy streets, in front of schools or theaters ARE acts of terrorism by ANY definition of the term

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1443935200082280450?s=20

That Levy did not mention this is noteworthy because, as it turns out, in 1981 two Israeli journalists for @YediotAhronot were about to reveal the truth about this Israeli terrorist car bombing campaign: but the military censor killed their story!!!

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1331610105515798528?s=20

@YediotAhronot Since 2018, the Israeli media has remained SILENT about these revelations by Bergman. One possible explanation, as I have written before, is that the story is STILL CENSORED in Israel:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1451192632017756173?s=20

@YediotAhronot It is impossible to know if that is the case or not. What is clear however is that there is NO censorship in US, and so that US journalists COULD write about this topic, COULD ask Israel to confirm or deny Bergman’s claims… And they have decided NOT TO

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1448272497393164296?s=20

As I have argued before, A LOT is at stake here: ability of Israelis to hold their leaders (Dagan, Eitan, Sharon are huge historical figures!!) to account; ability of Lebanese & Palestinian victims of these acts of terrorism to get justice; but also

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1476935598044811268?s=20

But also our ability to finally bring an end to this never ending cycle of violence & counter violence, terrorism & counter terrorism, something we will NEVER be able to do UNTIL we acknowledge that “we” have been / are “the terrorists” too:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1476936522045788192?s=20

This is why US media’s absolute SILENCE about Bergman’s revelations is SO problematic & consequential: it deprives people like Levy (&of course, Palestinians & others!) of one of the clearest, most powerful weapons as they fight against this propagandistic & destructive discourse

For those wondering: Palestinians have criticized utter hypocrisy of Israeli discourse of terrorism FOREVER. It’s just that this critique has NEVER been visible in the US. Just one (famous) example: this superb piece by the late Edward Said written in 1986 thenation.com/article/archiv…

For much more about Bergman's revelations, and about the absolute SILENCE of the US about this extraordinarily deadly terrorist campaign personally conducted by several very senior Israeli officers, see this Thread:

https://twitter.com/RBrulin/status/1476921953369870340?s=20