All right, so I have a little bit of time, and I want to talk to you about Heidi Levine. Because I’ve done a little bit of research, and now I understand a little bit more why this has become such a big deal. Heidi Levine, the freelance photojournalist, was knocked down on Friday, October 16th, in the West Bank as she was embedded with Palestinians throwing stones, storming towards settlers in a clash. Heidi Levine is a 63-year-old Jewish American with a very prestigious career, very well known, decades of experience, not particularly known as partisan; she’s not known to favor anyone in the Middle East. She’s known simply as someone who really cares. She’s a mom; I think most people would say Heidi Levine is a decent human being, a very sympathetic figure.

So the problem is that, on the face of it, looking at this situation, you have this very nice older lady—she’s maybe ten years, a little less than ten years, older than me—following around “the resistance.” That’s what they call themselves: the “good guys,” they like to think of themselves fighting the “bad guys,” which of course is the Israelis. Since she’s Jewish and Israelis are Jewish, there’s a little bit of an issue there because how can you criticize someone if it’s a Jewish person disagreeing with other Jewish people? Fine.

Anyway, the timeline of this and what she says just don’t mesh. They don’t mesh. So after the incident on Friday, which everybody already knows about, Heidi Levine gives this interview from her bedside in the hospital—and she’s given a number of them—and she was severely injured. She was severely injured; I’m not taking that away from her. I’m also not saying that it was good or right. It was not good or right. They took her camera; they took her stuff.

But she said a lot of things; she said she was kicked 50 times, and it was 10 minutes, and they picked her up just so they could kick her more, and she went down. And I want to tell you that the minute the story broke, I was all over it. I was looking for video; I was looking for information. And magically, The New York Times, the BBC, Reuters, The Washington Post, USA Today, all the independent Palestinian journalists—they cannot produce this 10-minute attack.

So at this time, I have concluded that unless someone comes up with evidence otherwise, there was no 10-minute attack. There’s no video of her being beaten 50 times. There’s video of her with the four or five guys standing around her; they’re masked, they’re over her, they take something from her. We know it’s her camera. We know her papers were taken. Then they help her up to a seated position, and then Jasper Nathaniel or Nathaniel Jasper—whatever this guy’s name is, another Jewish American—he is on the Palestinian side. He does his tweets from the Occupied West Bank; his position is real clear. He helps her, and they’re screaming in the video, “They’re shooting, the shooting, the shooting!” They make a whole thing, and they get her to the hospital.

Now, Iran made a whole promotional video out of this that appeared on Instagram, and I thought it was random till, again, I looked at the timeline. First, they show an Israeli—this is about 9:00 a.m., captured on X. The Israeli is surrounded by all these agitators, and they’re crowding in on him, and he’s trying to get away. This is during the olive harvest, which is used as the cover for provocations. Finally, he just pushes his way out. And so the Iranians film him pushing, and that’s what’s in their Instagram stories.

Then they include that with coverage of what happened to Heidi Levine, and an Iranian journalist is actually on scene about an hour later. So this thing with the Israeli guy in the olive groves happens, it’s posted at 9:00 a.m. on Friday. The Iranian, who is posing as the press, of course posts video at 10:19 a.m. So this is just an hour later, and you already see the Palestinians storming up the hill, and they’ve got the firecrackers. They’re looking for trouble. The Israelis had already said earlier in the morning, “They’re looking for trouble. They’re here. They have weapons, they’re coming out, they’re starting the provocations.”

And not long after that—maybe 15, 20 minutes after that—you see the Israelis coming down the hill, and there’s this big altercation that’s been filmed where they were in it with Heidi Levine. Apparently, the tear gas had gone off from the IDF, and the settlers had retreated, but a few were still left there, and then they quote-unquote “rescue” Heidi Levine. The Israelis did not really hurt her beyond getting her camera, but when a 63-year-old falls to the ground real hard and is hit with sticks, yes, there are going to be injuries.

So the timeline really looks like the Iranians, who were there to film it, provoked the whole thing, staged it as Israeli aggression, and packaged and sold it as an attack once again by the “violent settlers.” “Violent settlers” is the narrative: who don’t belong on the land because it’s the Occupied West Bank. They got what they wanted, and sure enough, the President of Israel is apologizing, and Ambassador Huckabee is apologizing, and they’re giving her smoochy-smoochy in the hospital, even though this is a very disputed story.

Now, the only person who actually stood up and said we need to get the facts was Prime Minister Netanyahu. He said this isn’t necessarily what you think, but nobody wanted to hear that. All they wanted to hear was that poor Heidi Levine was roughed up. They didn’t care who she was with, why she was with them, what they were doing, what the circumstances were, how they were looking for trouble, and they got trouble, and that frankly she didn’t belong there.

Now, just like in the Cornell case, I never blame the victim. She was there, and nothing bad should happen to anyone, but at the same time, there is such a thing as personal responsibility. If you hang out with sworn enemies of Israel, if you hang out with violent terrorists who continuously target settlers—and I know they say that the settlers are committing a pogrom; they love to use the Jewish words against the Jews—if you hang out with these types of people, there’s going to be clashes and there’s going to be problems, and you’re going to get caught in the problems. And we need to look at both sides of this as people and not as cartoons where the evil Zionists are out to get the defenseless Palestinians. It is just not that way.