ABSTRACT
The author is co-founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Block)—an organization of activists that’s been trying to revitalize Israel’s peace movement. Now in his 80s, Avnery began making the case for a Palestinian state in the early 1950s when most Israelis were in denial about the existence of the Palestinian people. Avnery is brave. Undaunted by assassination attempts or charges he coddles terrorists (“I know about terrorism, I was in Irgun.”), he’s a natural-born contrarian. For decades, he ran a radical tabloid, Haolam Hazeh that “was an apparent paradox: a 38mass-circulation paper attacking the most sacred beliefs and myths of the masses.” As a member of the Knesset (see his book 1 against 119) and as a life-long journalist, he’s taken on generations of pols in Israel. But he’s also willing to criticize his allies on the margins. He’s talked back to “pro-Palestinian” fantasts who talk nonsense about a one-state solution (i.e., no Israel) as well as those who draw false parallels between the situation of Palestinians and that of South African blacks struggling against apartheid.
