Articles by Uri Avnery
We found 223 results.
When God Despairs
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2016
Right after the foundation of Israel, God appeared to David Ben-Gurion and told him: “You have done good by my people. Utter a wish and I shall grant it!” “I wish that Israel shall be Jewish, democratic and encompass all the country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan,” Ben-Gurion replied.
→ read full articleOptimism of the Will – Critics of Israel Are Antisemitic by Definition
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
So now we have another anti-Semite. His name is Ban Ki-moon, and he is the Secretary General of the UN. In practice, the highest international official, a kind of World Prime Minister. He has dared to criticize the Israeli government, as well as the Palestinian Authority, for sabotaging the peace process, and thereby making Israeli-Palestinian peace almost impossible.
→ read full articleThe Pied Piper of Zion
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Feb 2016
Binyamin Netanyahu is our pied piper. Enchanted by his melodies, the people of Israel are marching behind him towards the river. Those burghers who are aware of what is happening are looking on. They don’t know what to do. How to save the children?
→ read full articleExtreme, Extremer, Extremest
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
As is well-known, Israel is a “Jewish and democratic state”. That is its official designation. Well… As for Jewish, it’s a new kind of Jewishness, a mutation. Since 1967, Israel has been a hybrid creation – half democratic, half dictatorial. Like an egg that is half fresh, half rotten.
→ read full articleThe Reign of Absurdiocy
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
Terrorism is a weapon. Like cannon. We would laugh at somebody who declares war on “international artillery”. Terrorism is a method of operation often used by oppressed peoples, including the French Resistance to the Nazis in WW II. We would laugh at anyone who declared war on “international resistance”. Carl von Clausewitz might have said: “Terrorism is a continuation of policy by other means.”
→ read full articleAdolf, Amin and Bibi
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2015
It is not very pleasant when serious people around the world – historians, psychiatrists, diplomats – ask themselves if my prime minister is completely sane. And not only abroad. More and more people in Israel are asking themselves the same question.
→ read full articleThe Ministry of Fear
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
26 Sep 2015 – “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” said President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was wrong.
→ read full articleThe Real Menace
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2015
I am afraid. I am not ashamed to admit it. I am afraid of the Islamic State movement, alias ISIS, alias Daesh. It is the only real danger that threatens Israel, that threatens the world, that threatens me. Those who treat it today with equanimity, with indifference, will come to regret it.
→ read full articleThe Face of a Boy
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2015
The Israel that presents itself to the world now is a state of occupiers, of oppressors, of brutal colonizers, of soldiers armed to the teeth who arrest people in the middle of the night and persecute them during the day. This face changes the perception of Israel throughout the world. The terrified face of young Muhammad Tamimi may well haunt us for a long time to come.
→ read full articleThe Magician’s Apprentice
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
One has to choose: Binyamin Netanyahu is either incredibly shrewd or incredibly foolish. Take his Iran policy. Actually, there is little to choose from. Netanyahu has no other policy to speak off.
→ read full articleJewish Terrorists
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2015
Do we approve of administrative detention, without trial and democratic safeguards, perhaps saving thereby the lives of Arabs and Jews, preventing worse disasters? Or do we uphold strict democratic principles, release all people held in administrative detention, Arabs and Jews alike, knowing that some of them will go on a killing spree?
→ read full articleDivide et Impera
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Binyamin Netanyahu is not known as a classical scholar, but even so he has adopted the Roman maxim Divide et Impera, divide and rule. The main (and perhaps only) goal of his policy is to extend the rule of Israel, as the “Nation-State of the Jewish People”, over all of Eretz Israel, the historical land of Palestine. This means ruling all of the West Bank and covering it with Jewish settlements, while denying any civil rights to its 2.5 million plus Arab inhabitants.
→ read full articleSheldon’s Stooges
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
In japan in the good old days, Binyamin Netanyahu would by now have committed hara-kiri. In England at that time, the monarch would have appointed him governor of the most remote little island in the Pacific Ocean. In Israel, his popularity rating is bound to go up. Because in our country, the old adage is getting a new twist: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure.
→ read full articleThe Treaty
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
What if the wily Persians did not even dream of building an atomic bomb, but used the threat to further their real aims? One of Netanyahu’s arguments is that the Iranians can and will cheat the naive Americans and build the bomb. He is sure that this is possible. Well, he should know. We did it, didn’t we?
→ read full articleTo Be Greek
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
Everybody has already voiced his (or her) opinion on the Greek crisis, whether he (or she) has an opinion or not. So I feel obliged to do the same. Every commentator, from Nobel prize-winning economists to my taxi driver in Tel Aviv, has a solution. Unfortunately, no one listens to them.
→ read full articleWar Crimes? Us???
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2015
The convenient way out is to proclaim that all UN officials are by nature anti-Semites and Israel-haters, so that answering their questions is counterproductive. We are moral. We are right. By nature. We can’t help it. Those who accuse us must be anti-Semites. Simple logic. To hell with them all!
→ read full articleIsratin or Palestrael?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
There was this guy who had an earth-shaking invention: an airplane that flies on water. No more gas. No more pollution. No more astronomical prices. Just fill it up with water, and it will fly to the end of the world. “Wonderful!” people cried out. “Show us the plans!”
→ read full articleBDS, the New Enemy
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
13 Jun 2015 – Binyamin Netanyahu was racking his brain. His whole career is based on fear mongering. Since Jews have lived in fear for millennia, it is easy to invoke it. They are addicts.
→ read full articleThe Real Naqba
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
6 Jun 2015 – Three weeks ago was Naqba Day – the day on which Palestinians inside and outside Israel commemorate their “catastrophe” – the exodus of more than half of the Palestinian people from the territories occupied by Israel in the 1948 war. Each side has its own version of this momentous event. Both these versions are utter nonsense – a mixture of propaganda, legend and hidden guilt feelings.
→ read full articleThe Map on the Wall
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
History shows us that there are (at least) two kinds of peace agreements. One kind, the stupid one, is based on power. The other, the intelligent, is based on common interest. The most notorious of the first kind is the Treaty of Versailles that followed World War I.
→ read full articleWho’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bomb?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2015
4 Apr 2015 – I must start with a shocking confession: I am not afraid of the Iranian nuclear bomb. I know that this makes me an abnormal person, almost a freak. But what can I do? I am unable to work up fear, like a real Israeli. Try as I may, the Iranian bomb does not make me hysterical.
→ read full articleAn Expensive Speech
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
President Obama, who is being insulted, humiliated and obstructed in his most cherished policy move, the agreement with Iran, would be superhuman if he did not brood on revenge. Even a movement of his little finger could hurt Israel grievously. Does Netanyahu care? Of course he cares. But he cares more about his reelection. Much, much more.
→ read full articleAnti What? The Hoax of Rising Antisemitism in Europe
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
Anti-Semitism is on the rise. All over Europe it is raising its ugly head. Jews are in danger everywhere. They must make haste and come home to Israel before it is too late. True? Untrue? NONSENSE!
→ read full articleThe Casino Republic
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Who is the ruler of Israel? Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, of course.
WRONG. The real ruler of Israel is one Sheldon Adelson, 81, American Jew, Casino king, who was rated as the world’s tenth richest person, worth 37.2 billion dollars at the latest count. But who is counting?
Zionists All
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
Many times people ask me: “Are you a Zionist?” My stock answer is: “Depends on what you mean by Zionism.” This is quite sincere. The term Zionism can mean many different things. Like the term socialism, for example. Francois Hollande is a socialist. So was Joe Stalin. Any resemblance?
→ read full articleGalant’s Gallant Act
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
There used to be a joke about a sadist and a masochist. “Hit me! Beat me! Kick me!” the masochist pleads with the sadist. The sadist smiles a cruel smile and slowly answers: “No!” That, more or less, reflects the situation on Israel’s northern border at this moment.
→ read full articleWaving in the First Row
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jan 2015
One has to understand what pushes young local-born Muslims to commit such acts. Who are they? What do they think? What are their feelings? In what circumstances did they grow up? What can be done to change them? It takes time and effort, with results uncertain. Much easier for politicians to march in the street in front of the cameras. And who marched in the first row, beaming like a victor? Our own and only Bibi.
→ read full articleThe Rock of Our Existence
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jan 2015
On the connection between Archeology and Ideology. The Bible is not real history. It is a monumental religious and literary document, that has inspired untold millions throughout the centuries. It has formed the minds of many generation of Jews, Christians and Muslims. But history is something else. History tells us what really happened. Archeology is a tool of history, an invaluable tool for the understanding of what took place.
→ read full articleMy Glorious Brothers
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Dec 2014
When I was 15-year-old and a member of the Irgun underground (by today’s criteria, an honest-to-goodness terrorist organization), we sang “(In the past) we had the heroes / Bar Kochba and the Maccabees / Now we have the new ones / The national youth…” The melody was a German military marching song. Why did we look for heroes in the remote past?
→ read full articleSplendid Isolation
Uri Avnery - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Dec 2014
20 Dec 2014 – A Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, the end of the occupation, peace between Israel and the entire Arab and Muslim world. Or a Greater Israel, continuous occupation or annexation, more settlements and ethnic cleansing, permanent war. Israel has to choose. So has the world.
→ read full articleThe Unholy City
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Nov 2014
In its long and checkered history, Jerusalem has been occupied by dozens of conquerors. Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Mamluks and Turks, Britons and Jordanians – to mention just a few. The latest occupier is Israel, which conquered and annexed Jerusalem in 1967.
→ read full articleWine, Blood and Gasoline
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2014
Kafr Kanna, a village near Nazareth, is probably the place where Jesus – according to the New Testament – turned water into wine. Now it is the Arab village where the Israeli police is turning stones into blood.
→ read full articleIs ISIS Coming?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Nov 2014
Israelis, like Americans, are practical people. They don’t appreciate the power of ideas. They think like Stalin who, when warned of the Pope, asked: “How many divisions does he have?” It is ideas that change the world. Like those of the legendary Moses. Of Jesus of Nazareth. Of Muhammad. Of Karl Marx.
→ read full articleMuhammad, Where Are You?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Oct 2014
When the statisticians saw the results, they were flabbergasted. The name that topped the list was Muhammad. Muhammad? The most popular name in the Jewish state? What to do? Simple: you just omit the Arab names. No Muhammad. When this became known, many Israelis laughed. How silly can you get?
→ read full articleCrusaders and Zionists
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Oct 2014
Lately, the words “Crusaders” and “Zionists” have been appearing more and more often as twins. In a documentary about ISIS I just saw, they appeared together in almost every sentence uttered by the Islamist fighters, including teenagers. Some sixty years ago I wrote an article whose title was just that: “Crusaders and Zionists”.
→ read full articleAh, If I Were 25
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
Research shows that one of the most often used words in Hebrew is “Shalom”. It is based on the root “whole” and conveys the sense of wholeness, safety, wellbeing. In Arabic, Salaam has the same meaning. Two weeks ago, on my 91st birthday, I asked myself: if I were 25 and straining for action, how would I go about trying to create a new Left?
→ read full articleHannibal ad Portas
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Sep 2014
The last war has come to an end, the next war has not yet started, so let’s use the time to speak of many things. Of Hannibal, for example.
→ read full articleScotland on the Euphrates: The Obsolescence of the Nation-State
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Sep 2014
Two countries competed this week for first place in news programs all over the world: Scotland and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. There could not be a greater difference than between these two countries.
→ read full articleGod Wills It!
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Sep 2014
National conflicts are basically rational. They concern territory. They can usually be solved by compromise. Religious conflicts are irrational. Each side believes in an absolute truth, and automatically considers everybody else as infidels, enemies of the only true God.
→ read full articleThe War for Nothing
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Sep 2014
On the Israeli side: 71 dead, among them 66 soldiers, 1 child. On the Palestinian side: 2,143 dead, 577 of them children, 263 women, 102 elderly. 11,230 injured. 10,800 buildings destroyed. 8,000 partially destroyed. About 40,000 damaged homes. Among the damaged buildings: 277 schools, 10 hospitals, 70 mosques, 2 churches. Also, 12 West Bank demonstrators, mostly children, who were shot. Celebrating a similar triumph long ago, Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, remarked: “Another such victory and we will be lost!”
→ read full articleEyeless in Gaza
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Aug 2014
The trouble with war is that it has two sides. Everything would be so much easier if war had only one side. Ours, of course. “We” – Israelis and Palestinians, locked forever in an embrace of war. Or do what Samson did: commit suicide.
→ read full articleMeeting in a Tunnel
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Aug 2014
On one of the archery boards every single arrow had hit a bull’s eye. A curious visitor asked the owner: how is this possible? The reply: “Simple. First I shoot the arrows, and then I draw the circles around them.” In this war, our government does the same.
→ read full articleOnce And For All!
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jul 2014
To put an end to the launching of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, Once And For All! To put an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, Once And For All! So why don’t the two sides come together without foreign interference and agree on tit for tat? Once And For All?
→ read full articleWho is Winning?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jul 2014
What would history look like if it were written in the style of the “Solid Cliff (a.k.a. Protective Edge) operation? For example: Winston Churchill was a scoundrel.
→ read full articleThe Watch on the Jordan
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jul 2014
The thousand-year old conflict between Muslim Sunnis and Muslim Shiites is reaching a new climax. A historic drama is unfolding around us. And what is the reaction of our government? Binyamin Netanyahu put it succinctly: “We must defend Israel on the Jordan River, before they reach Tel Aviv.” Simple, concise, idiotic.
→ read full articleGood for the Jews?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jun 2014
Seriously, the claim by Binyamin Netanyahu that he has a right to pick and choose the Palestinian government is rather astonishing.
→ read full articleIn Their Own Juice
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 May 2014
According to press reports, President Barack Obama has decided to let Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas “stew in their own juice.” What does it mean for “both” to stew in their own juice?
→ read full articleDear Salman
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 May 2014
Years ago I was invited to a UN conference on the Palestinian refugees in Paris.
→ read full articleA Shameful Chapter
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
For anyone interested in Israeli-Palestinian peace, the prospect of domestic Palestinian reconciliation is good news.
→ read full articleWords, Words, Words
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Apr 2014
In Israeli politics, the word “peace” has become poison. “Political settlement” is the vogue term. It is meant to say the same but of course, it doesn’t. “Peace” means much more than the formal end of warfare. It contains elements of reconciliation, of something spiritual. “Political settlement” means nothing but a document formulated by lawyers and signed by politicians.
→ read full articleA Hundred Years Later
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Mar 2014
The majority of the Crimean population is Russian, and undoubtedly wishes now to return to Russia. It expressed this wish in a referendum that, on the whole, seems to be quite authentic. So the annexation may be justified. For this reason I supported the independence of Kosovo and believe that the same principle applies now to Catalonia and Scotland, Tibet and Chechnya.
→ read full articleGod Bless Putin
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
Binyamin Netanyahu is very good at making speeches, especially to Jews, neocons and such, who jump up and applaud wildly at everything he says, including that tomorrow the sun will rise in the west. The question is: is he good at anything else?
→ read full articleCaptain Boycott Rides Again
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2014
It has always been a secret ambition of mine to have a bagatz ruling bearing my name. Whatever the outcome, the decision in the case of “Uri Avnery and Others v. the State of Israel” will be quoted for a long time. Some satisfaction, at least.
→ read full articleReturn, Return oh Shulamit
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2014
Pete Seeger touched my life only once. But what a touch.
→ read full articleNothing New Under the Sun
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2014
And here came the Zionists, mostly atheists, and wanted to bring the Jews to the Land of Israel without God’s permission, indeed abolishing God altogether. They built a secular society. Their founding father, Theodor Herzl, held that after the foundation of the Jewish State, no one outside it would be considered a Jew anymore.
→ read full articleBibi & Libie
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2014
Perhaps I am too stupid, but for the heck of me I cannot understand the sense of the Israeli demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
→ read full articleNeutral – In Whose Favor?
Uri Avnery – Transcend Media Service,
6 Jan 2014
Former Israeli army Chief of Staff, a man of limited intelligence, was told that a certain individual was an atheist. “Yes,” he asked, “but a Jewish atheist or a Christian atheist?”
→ read full article(Un)holy River
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2013
So here comes John Kerry again, for the umpteenth time (but who is counting?) to make peace between us and the Palestinians. Unfortunately, it is based on a false premise. To wit: that the Israeli government wants peace based on the two-state solution.
→ read full articleThe Debacle
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2013
The greatest danger to Israel is not the putative Iranian nuclear bomb. The greatest danger is the stupidity of our leaders. Let us start from the end.
→ read full articleThe Battle of the Titans
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2013
This is not merely a fight between Israel and the US. Nor is it only a fight between the White House and Congress. It is also a battle between intellectual titans. (I commented at the time that both sides were right, and that this is a unique dog-tail relationship. I even quoted the old Jewish joke about the rabbi who tells a plaintiff that he is right, and then says the same to the defendant. “But they can’t both be right!” remonstrates his wife. “You are right, too!” he answers.)
→ read full articleThe Assassination
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2013
From the first moment, I did not have the slightest doubt that Yasser Arafat was assassinated. It was a matter of simple logic. He was the man who was ready to make peace and who was able to get the Palestinian people to accept it. He also laid down the terms: a Palestinian state with borders based on the Green Line, with its capital in East Jerusalem. This is exactly what his assassins aimed to prevent.
→ read full articleIsrael: Taking Apartheid Apart
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2013
Is Israel an apartheid state? This question is not going away. It raises its head every few months. Recently I had the opportunity to discuss this subject with an expert, who had lived in South Africa throughout the apartheid era. I learned a lot from this.
→ read full articleStolen Wars
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2013
This week Israeli TV screened a documentary film about the life of the Israelis in the Shah’s Iran. It was sheer paradise (“paradise” is also a Persian word). The Israelis lived off the fat of the land. They built the Shah’s dreaded secret police (the Savak, not to be confused with Shabak, its Israeli model). They befriended his generals, most of whom were trained in Israel. They built his industries and started to construct his nuclear installations. Sheer nostalgia.
→ read full articleIch bin ein Bil’iner! – “5 Broken Cameras’” Strange Trip to the Oscars
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Mar 2013
8 Mar 2013 – This does not happen every day: a Minister of Culture publicly rejoices because a film from her country has not been awarded an Oscar. It happened this week. Limor Livnat, still Minister of Culture in the outgoing government, told Israeli TV she was happy that Israel’s two entries for Oscars in the category of documentary films, which made it to the final four, did lose in the end.
→ read full articleThe Third Intifada?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
Is this the third intifada? The more people on both sides talk about the Third Intifada, the less it is likely to happen. As the Germans used to say, Revolutions foretold are not going to happen. But if there is no end to the occupation in sight, the Third Intifada will break out one day, quite suddenly, when nobody has been talking about it, when everybody on both sides was thinking about other things.
→ read full articleGoodbye to a War
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Binyamin Netanyahu and his patron, Sheldon Adelson, betted on Mitt Romney, with the State of Israel as their chip. They lost. About the Iran war, Israeli hawks can kiss it goodbye. The usual cliché says that US presidents in their second term are free of political pressures and can at long last act according to their conscience. That is certainly true – up to a point. We need an Israeli Obama, who will work with the US Obama for peace.
→ read full articleOf Bombs and Comics
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Oct 2012
My first reaction to Binyamin Netanyahu’s exhibition of comics at the UN General Assembly was shame. Shame that the supreme elected representative of my country would stoop to such a primitive rhetorical device, bordering on the childish. (One Israeli commentator suggested putting him on a rug with a lot of paper and Indian ink, and letting him play to his heart’s content.)
→ read full articleA Marriage of Morons: Romney and Netanyahu
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
Perhaps the United Morons of America have a right to elect Mitt Romney president. But for the sake of the US and Israel, I hope that this will not happen. Some people say that Israel is the 51st state of the Union. Some say that it is the first among the 51. Whatever, our lives – and perhaps our deaths – depend to a great extent on the man in the White House.
→ read full articleThe March of Folly
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Sep 2012
Nothing could be more scary than the thought that this duo – Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak – is in a position to start a war, the dimensions and outcome of which are incalculable. It’s scary not only because of their ideological fixations and mental outlook, but also because of the level of their intelligence.
→ read full articleAvigdor Lieberman: Master of Mischief
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Sep 2012
Well, he was born in Soviet Moldavia and speaks Russian fluently. Even though he came to Israel already 34 years ago, just a few days after his 20th birthday, he is still considered by most Israelis as a “Russian”, speaking Hebrew with a heavy Russian accent and looking as foreign as possible. He is an ardent admirer of Vladimir Putin and his Doppelgängers, Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk and Victor Yanukovych in Kiev.
→ read full articlePaul Ryan and the Fountainhead
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Aug 2012
I was not interested in Paul Ryan, the man about to be nominated by the Republican party for the office of vice-president, until the name Ayn Rand popped up. Ayn Rand, it was said, was one of the main inspirations for his particular philosophy. Since Ryan is being represented not as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill politician, like Mitt Romney, but as a profound political and economic thinker, the inspiration deserves some scrutiny.
→ read full articleTwo Faces: The Most Successful Terrorist Of The 20th Century
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2012
Yitzhak Shamir died two weeks ago and was buried in the cemetery of the “Great of the Nation” in Jerusalem. He was 97 years old and had been vegetating for years in a state of dementia. Most Israelis did not know that he was still alive. When I described him on TV as “the most successful terrorist of the 20th century”, the interviewer raised his eyebrows. But it was an accurate description. Shamir, the dead honest fanatic, has many followers. Olmert, the living corrupt pragmatist, has very few. Netanyahu, their current successor, has the vices of both and the virtues of neither.
→ read full articlePoisoning Arafat
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jul 2012
For me, there was no surprise. From the very first day, I was convinced that Yasser Arafat had been poisoned by Ariel Sharon. I even wrote about it several times. Arafat was the man who was able to make peace with Israel, willing to do so, and – more important – to get his people, including the Islamists, to accept it. This would have put an end to the settlement enterprise. That’s why he was poisoned.
→ read full articleManhunt: This is Racism, Pure and Simple
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2012
“WE SHALL not be a normal people, until we have Jewish whores and Jewish thieves in the Land of Israel,” our national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik, said some 80 years ago. This dream has come true. We have Jewish murder ers, Jewish robbers and Jewish whores.
→ read full articleThe War of Lies
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jun 2012
THIRTY YEARS ago this week [8 Jun 2012], the Israeli army crossed into Lebanon and started the most stupid war in Israel’s history. Almost all wars are based on lies. Lies are considered legitimate instruments of war. Lebanon War I (as it was later called) was a glorious example. From beginning to end (if it has ended yet) it was a war of deceit and deception, falsehoods and fabrications. THE LIES started with the official name: “Operation Peace in Galilee”.
→ read full articleA Putsch against War
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 May 2012
In some countries, they arrest the president, occupy government offices and TV stations and annul the constitution. They then publish Communique No. 1, explaining the dire need to save the nation. Not in Israel. In our country we are now seeing a kind of verbal uprising against the elected politicians by a group of current and former army generals, foreign intelligence and internal security chiefs who condemn the government’s threat to start a war against Iran, and some of them condemn the government’s failure to negotiate with the Palestinians for peace.
→ read full articleThou Shalt Not Kill (Thyself)
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
I believe that the people of Israel – the Israeli nation – have the will to survive. But in order to survive, they must wake up from their apathetic stupor and change course – turning towards peace based on the two-state solution, separating the state from religion and building a new social order.
→ read full articleHurrah for Egypt!
Uri Avnery - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2012
The impossible has happened. The Egyptian parliament, democratically elected by a free people, has convened for its first session. For me this is a wonderful, a joyful occasion. For many Israelis, this is a worrisome, a threatening sight.
→ read full articleAnti-peace Coalition Governing Israel – The Blockbusters
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
“Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic policy,” Henry Kissinger once remarked. This has probably been more or less true of every country since the advent of democracy. Yet in Israel, this seems even truer. (Ironically, it could almost be said that the US has no foreign policy, only an Israeli domestic policy.)
→ read full articleThe Fearmongers
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
The Iranian Nuclear Bomb means a Second Holocaust, no less. Only the strong leadership of Binyamin Netanyahu can save us in the nick of time. But nobody asks the relevant question: why would any Iranian leader attack a country that has the ability to devastate Iran in a “second strike”? Yes, the Iranian leaders may be religious fanatics, but rabbis demand that soldiers may leave a military ceremony where female soldiers sing. “A woman’s voice is her sexual part,” a holy text asserts. And a prominent rabbi has announced that a religious soldier should rather face a firing squad than listen to a woman singing. (I am not making this up.)
→ read full articleThe King’s Speech
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Servie,
5 Dec 2011
IN THE middle of the ’80s, a German diplomat conveyed to me a surprising message. A member of the Jordanian Royal family would like to speak with me in Amman. At the time, Jordan was still officially at war with us.
→ read full articleA Day in November
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
THIS TUESDAY will be the 64th anniversary of a fateful day for our lives. A day in November. A day to remember. On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted, by 33 votes against 13 (with 10 abstentions), the Palestine Partition Plan.
→ read full article“Hold Me Back!”
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period. Since the 1956 Suez adventure, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an ultimatum that stopped the action, Israel has never undertaken any significant military operation without obtaining American consent in advance. The US is Israel’s only dependable supporter in the world (besides, perhaps, Fiji, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.) To destroy this relationship means cutting our lifeline. To do that, you have to be more than just a little crazy. You have to be raving mad.
→ read full articleObama’s Speech, Abu Mazen’s Gamble
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a lie. A blatant lie: the speaker knew it was a lie, and so did the audience. It was Obama at his best, Obama at his worst… Israel needs peace. Israel needs to live side by side with the Palestinian people, within the Arab world. Israel cannot rely forever on the unconditional support of the declining United States. Obama knows this full well. He knows what is good for Israel, even if Netanyahu doesn’t. Yet he has handed the keys of the car to the drunken driver.
→ read full articleDogs of War
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2011
They have been bred by an ardent admirer of the late “Rabbi” Meir Kahane, who was branded by the Israeli Supreme Court as a fascist. Their task is to protect the settlements and attack Palestinians. They are settler-dogs, or, rather, dog-settlers.
→ read full articleDichter’s Law
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2011
“THE PEOPLE Demand Social Justice!” 250 thousand protesters chanted in unison in Tel Aviv last Saturday. But what they need – to quote an American artist – is “more unemployed politicians”.
→ read full article“How Goodly Are Thy Tents”
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
FIRST OF all, a warning. Tent cities are springing up all over Israel. A social protest movement is gathering momentum. At some point in the near future, it may endanger the right-wing government.
→ read full articleSacred Mantras
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2011
The Palestinians are planning something thoroughly obnoxious: they intend to apply to the UN for statehood. Why obnoxious? Any Israeli spokesman (not to mention spokeswoman) will tell you readily: because it is a “unilateral” move. How dare they proclaim a state unilaterally? How dare they do so without the consent of the other party to the conflict – us?
→ read full articleBibi and the Yo-Yos
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2011
There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu.
→ read full articleRejoice Not…
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
The young men and women of Tahrir Square, with their longing for freedom, have consigned bin Laden to history, months before his physical death. His philosophy has a future only if the Arab Awakening fails completely and leaves behind a profound sense of disappointment and despair.
→ read full articleOne Word
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2011
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an historic event. “You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different ideology.
→ read full articleTahrir Square, Tel Aviv
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2011
Well, there are surprises in history. Sometimes, when the need arises, peoples can surprise themselves. It can happen here [in Israel]. If it does, it will not surprise those of us who believe in our people. True, Rabin Square is not Tahrir Square. But then, neither was it.
→ read full articleWho Is Annexing Whom?
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2011
IN A rare late-night session, the Knesset has finally adopted two obnoxious racist laws. Both are clearly directed against Israel’s Arab citizens, a fifth of the population.
→ read full articleA Dirty Word
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2011
On Thursday evening I could not think of anything except Libya.
→ read full articleWeimar in Jerusalem: The Rise of Fascism in Israel
Uri Avnery – Redress,
1 Nov 2010
Uri Avnery warns that fascism will overwhelm Israel unless progressive forces “awake from the coma, understand what is happening and where it is leading to, protest and struggle by all available means … in order to arrest the fascist wave that is threatening to engulf us”.
→ read full article(Italian) La Saggezza di Gandhi
Uri Avnery – Come Don Chisciotte,
4 Oct 2010
Facendo zapping alla tv, mi sono imbattuto in un’intervista con il nipote del Mahatma Gandhi su una rete americana (la Fox – pensate!). “Mio nonno ci ha detto di amare il nemico anche quando si lotta contro di lui”, ha detto, “ha combattuto contro gli inglesi risolutamente, ma amava gli inglesi” (cito a memoria). La mia reazione immediata è stata: sono sciocchezze, il pio desiderio dei buonisti!
→ read full articleWho Is Afraid of a Real Flotilla Inquiry?
Uri Avnery – Eurasia Review,
21 Jun 2010
If a real Commission of Inquiry had been set up (instead of the pathetic excuse for a commission), here are some of the questions it should have addressed:
→ read full articleKill a Turk and Rest
Uri Avnery - Gush-Shalom,
14 Jun 2010
The ship was called “Exodus 1947”. It left France in the hope of breaking the British blockade, which was imposed to prevent ships loaded with Holocaust survivors from reaching the shores of Palestine. If it had been allowed to reach the country, the illegal immigrants would have come ashore and the British would have sent them to detention camps in Cyprus, as they had done before. Nobody would have taken any notice of the episode for more than two days.
→ read full article“HOLD ME BACK!”
Uri Avnery – Gush Shalom,
12 Apr 2010
When a boy has a scuffle with a bigger and stronger boy, he pretends that he is going to attack him any moment and shouts to the spectators: “Hold me back, or I am going to kill him!”
→ read full articleON THE ROAD TO CANOSSA
Uri Avnery – Dissident Voice,
28 Mar 2010
In January 1077, King Henry IV walked to Canossa. He crossed the snow-covered Alps barefoot, wearing a penitent monk’s hair shirt, and reached the North-Italian fortress in which the Vicar of God had found refuge. Pope Gregory VII had excommunicated him after a conflict over the right to invest bishops throughout the German Reich. The […]
→ read full article