25 Facts About Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Gideon Levy's father, Heinz Loewy, was born in the town of Saaz in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, and earned a law degree from the University of Prague.

Gideon Levy fled the Nazis in 1939, together with 800 other refugees, on a journey organized by two Slovak Jews.

Gideon Levy spent six weeks as an illegal immigrant on the Panamanian-registered ship Frossoula, which was denied entry into Turkey and Palestine, and was permitted only temporary anchorage at Tripoli.

Gideon Levy was then imprisoned in a detention camp at Beirut for six weeks.

Gideon Levy's father opened a bakery in Herzliya with his sister and worked as a newspaper deliveryman and then an office clerk.

Gideon Levy was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1974 and served as a reporter for Army Radio.

Gideon Levy has written a column called "Twilight Zone" about the hardships of the Palestinians since 1988.

Gideon Levy hosted A Personal Meeting with Gideon Levy, a weekly talk show that was broadcast on Israeli Channel 3, and has appeared periodically on other television talk shows.

Gideon Levy has said that his views on Israel's policies toward the Palestinians developed only after joining Haaretz.

Gideon Levy criticizes what he sees as Israeli society's moral blindness to the effects of its acts of war and occupation.

Gideon Levy has referred to the construction of settlements on private Palestinian land as "the most criminal enterprise in [Israel's] history".

Gideon Levy used to support a two-state solution, but now feels it has become untenable, and supports a one-state solution.

Gideon Levy supports boycotting Israel, saying it is "the Israeli patriot's final refuge".

Gideon Levy has said that economic boycott is more important, but that he supports academic and cultural boycott.

Gideon Levy's writing has earned him numerous awards, including the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award in 1996 from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Anna Lindh Foundation Journalism Award in 2008 for an article he wrote about Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces, and the Peace Through Media Award in 2012.

In 2021, Gideon Levy was awarded Israel's top journalism award, the Sokolow Prize.

Gideon Levy has been criticised for being anti-Israeli and supporting the Palestinians.

Gideon Levy accused Levy of amateurism because he does not speak Arabic.

Gideon Levy himself joked that there is a thick file of anti-Gideon Levy cancellations in the Haaretz newsroom.

Yehoshua, formerly a supporter of Gideon Levy, described his comparison of Gazan-Israeli death tolls as absurd and questioned his motives.

In 2013, Gideon Levy published an article about what he views as a disgraceful attitude towards African asylum seekers in Israel.

Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver demanded that Gideon Levy be placed on trial.

Gideon Levy later apologised to those who were offended, but claimed that the real problem was that he had called Russian "immigrants" instead of "olim" and compared them to Africans.

Gideon Levy says his sons do not share his politics and do not read anything he writes.