Amiram Levin

Amiram Levin served in Sayeret Matkal and rose to become its commander. He was commander of the IDF Northern Command, deputy of the Mossad and director and chairman of the National Roads Company of Israel.

According to an Al Jazeera documentary, in 2013 Levin stated at an arms industry conference that Israel’s goal in the occupied territories was to create more ‘room to manoeuvre’ by punishing the Palestinians, adding that “You have to understand, most Palestinians were born to die – we just have to help them.”[1][2][3]

A leading figure on the Israeli left and member of the Israeli Labour Party Levin is considered a liberal icon.[4] After losing out to Avi Gabbay in the Labour party's elections in Jun 2017, he expressed his support for the winner. He has supported Breaking the Silence, and thinks the army has grown soft because of the occupation. He also believes Palestinians deserve being occupied militarily because they refused to accept the borders set out for two states in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan. He does not accept the borders existing before the 1967 war, thinks Israel was right to conquer the West Bank ('Judea and Samaria') and is on record as advocating the expansion of Israeli settlements. He has also opined that if Palestinians fail to abide by agreements, Israel should “tear them apart” in a future war and forcibly transfer them to “the other side of the Jordan River."[5][6] Recently he has suggested a loosening of the Gaza blockade, and advocates allowing Palestinians in Gaza the use of an airport and a port, on condition that if rockets continue to be fired against Israel, entire neighbourhoods there should be flattened.[4]

He also espouses the view that the militancy of Palestinian children and youths poses a greater threat to Israel than Hamas, and hasbara warfare has a key strategic value to counter what he considers is the manipulation of images of Palestinian children, resisting the occupation to influence world opinion.[7]