Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / What a photojournalist learned after being beaten by Jewish settlers

Transcript

What a photojournalist learned after being beaten by Jewish settlers · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: U.S.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee praised Israeli police for arresting
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: 10 people on Monday in connection with a surge of
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: violence during the olive harvest in the occupied West Bank.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: One of the victims of the violence was Washington Post
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: photojournalist Heidi Levine. Last Friday, as we reported at the time,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Israeli settlers kicked and stabbed the photojournalist for 10 minutes,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: even though she wore a vest clearly marked press, according
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: to her employer. In this video, you can see her
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: near the end of the attack being helped up. as
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: fellow journalist Stansom Palestinians came to her aid as she
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: was trying to get away from the Jewish zealot settlers,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: they started attacking again.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Take a look.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Heidi Levine ended up in the hospital with multiple broken bones,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: but she is thankfully well enough to talk to us.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Heidi Levine joins us now from Israel. Heidi, you just
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: got out of the hospital. It's your first day home.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I can't imagine the trauma of this and the emotional
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: and physical wear and tear, but you are home. How
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: are you doing?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It's been a rough day. Just listening to The audio
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that you just played of, that was from the attack.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And when I was being rescued, it's hard to listen to.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I think what hurts me the most is I can
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: now really understand what others have gone through, what Palestinian women, children, men...
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: have gone through that I have met after they were attacked.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I've covered funerals of young people that had been killed
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: by these Jewish settlers. So it was always very difficult
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to meet people, even a man that was sexually abused
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and tortured in front of his family. So I can't
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: even imagine. I'm an American. I work for the Washington Post.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: My story is getting a lot of attention around the world.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Everyone wants to talk to me. But I can't imagine
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: what it's like for all the victims that have gone
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: through the same ordeal and are living with this, the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: threat of this violence on a daily basis, like what
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it what it is like for them. I mean, I'm
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: in a safe place right now. You know, all the
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: people I've met, all the victims, they have no place
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: else to go. There's no way to keep their families safe.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So it's very, very personal to me. And it's very personal.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It actually has strengthened my commitment to continue working to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: try to make a difference.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Well, you do make a difference. I want to play
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: part of what another journalist who was there, Jasper Nathaniel,
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: told my colleague Jim Sciutto last week.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Take a listen. At one point I saw somebody, I
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: thought maybe he was helping her up. He grabbed her
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: by her vest and pulled her up and he held
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: her there so another seller could then kick her and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: knock her back down. And they continued beating her and
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: calling her. They stole all of her equipment off of
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: her cameras, her phone.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Her wallet.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: And, you know, it was truly horrific. I mean, I
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: was worried that she was going to be killed.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: So walk us through what was going through your mind
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: as this unfolded. And just for folks at home who
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: maybe don't understand all the intricacies of the West Bank,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the occupied West Bank, these zealots are supported and protected.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: In many ways, by the Netanyahu administration.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Anyway, go ahead. Walk us through.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, when we first arrived, you know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the night before, together with a colleague of mine, Orin Zeev,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: we knew... The IDF had granted permission to these farmers
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: to harvest their olives. We left at 6 o'clock in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the morning. We met other journalists at 7.15. And why
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: are we all working together? Because of the safety concern.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: We don't even mark our cars with meat with press
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: signs anymore because it's it makes us very, uh, vulnerable
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to being attacked by settlers. It's not the first time
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I've been attacked in my career by them. Um, and,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: but hopefully it will be the last. Um, and, um,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: everything was fine. Uh, and then we, after a few minutes,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we saw across, um, Like, I was using a 100
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to 500 millimeter lens to see on the nearby hilltop.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: People were gathering, young people. You could see that they
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: had black masks on their face. You could see some
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: wearing skull caps, kippot. And you could see also the
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: religious garment that men wear under their shirts called tzitzit.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And you could clearly tell. acknowledged that they were Jewish settlers.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And the number of them just grew. Like in the beginning,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: there was maybe like a dozen. And then there was
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: about maybe 70 of them. And they started to light
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the trees, olive trees on fire. And it stayed like
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that for like another 20 minutes, maybe. And then they
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: walked down. They took a lower position on the hill,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: maybe 100 meters lower. And then all of a sudden
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: chaos broke out. There was tear gas. There was gunfire.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: From what I understand, a Palestinian man was shot in
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the leg and the settlers charged for it. And that's
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: when I saw a whole gang of them. I mean,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I was trying to like go to another area and see,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you know, try to find also other members of the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: media to be safer and to figure out what was
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: going on. I mean, I didn't understand that, like, if
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the IDF had given the farmers permission the day before,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: why was it allowed for the settlers to even gather
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: on the hilltop? Why wasn't the IDF there actually preventing
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: any gatherings? So this never would have happened. But what
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: happened is when the IDF charged forward attacking the Palestinians,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the settlers with them charged forward. And that's when I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: was attacked. I was thrown to the ground. Luckily for me,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I was wearing my flak jacket and helmet, even though it's,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you know, together with cameras, that's a lot of weight.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: But we survived. as journalists, we even discussed it on
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: first thing in the morning and all decided we have
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to wear a vest and helmet. And they just kept
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: kicking me and hitting me with sticks. And it just
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: kept going on and on. And then I actually thought, okay,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll just play dead and pretend I'm dead and
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they'll stop and they'll leave me alone. If I don't react,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't really react to them. And all of a
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: sudden I got, like, I was holding on to my cameras.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: One camera was actually attached to my black jacket with
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: a clip so it wouldn't slip off my shoulder. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I had the camera bag, a pouch, and they just, like,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: tore my cameras off my shoulders. They took my camera
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: bag with lenses. They took my pouch with my American passport,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: my credit cards, my documents. my memory cards, even some
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: work still from Ukraine, which I only just got back
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: from being there for three weeks and everything. And when
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: they stood me up, like it's absolutely not true what
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: the prime minister said in his comment that it looks
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: like I would, it appeared to be like I was
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: being helped. No, they only stood me up because it was,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: They couldn't manage to get everything off my shoulders to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: rob me, including ripping off my gold necklace that my
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: daughter gave me for my birthday. So, like, yeah. And
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: then what I remember is Jasper and others and... trying
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to rescue me, and then we came under attack again.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And it was like this biblical battle where the Palestinians men,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a group of men, went in front of me to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: protect us. me and my rescuers from being attacked again
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and if they didn't do that like all all of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: us would have been they would have been in the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: same situation as me and so yeah that's what's Happened
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Thankfully, those Palestinian men protected you, and thankfully you got
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: out of there. Heidi, to what extent do you blame
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Smotrich and Ben-Gavir and Netanyahu for what happened?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Well, you hear the rhetoric, right? You hear their speeches.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: You.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I've documented their visits in the West Bank. So I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: think the answer is pretty obvious. And the thing is,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: even today, like generals are coming out with warnings that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: this is not going to get any better. This is
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: going to get a lot worse. And they don't even
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: know how to handle it. It's not just a few hundred.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: It's not a few dozen. It are thousands. thousands of them.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And they're just, it's, I don't even know how they're
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: going to bring this under control. And it's not like something,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: this is completely new either. I think this has been
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: going on for all the, over four decades that I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: have been covering this region. But it has, I've never seen,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I've never seen this situation in the West Bank or
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the situation in Israel at a level that it is today.