Wine, Blood and Gasoline

Uri Avnery at a Hadash rally against the 2006 Lebanon War

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. On the fateful day, the police was confronting a group of young Arabs protesting against the Israeli …

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Self-Boycott

Uri Avnery at a Hadash rally against the 2006 Lebanon War

OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN Can a country boycott itself? That may sound like a silly question. It is not. At the memorial service for Nelson Mandela, the “Giant of History” as Barack Obama called him, Israel was not represented by any of its leaders. The only dignitary who agreed to go was the speaker of the …

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Peace and Watermelons

Uri Avnery at a Hadash rally against the 2006 Lebanon War

OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN One of the most interesting and prolonged private debates I have had in my life was with the brilliant Dr. Nahum Goldmann. The subject: American peace initiatives. It was an unequal debate, of course. Goldmann was my elder by 28 years. While I was a mere editor of an Israeli news magazine, …

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The Strong and the Sweet in Palestine’s Successful UN Bid

Uri Avnery at a Hadash rally against the 2006 Lebanon War

OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN? It was a day of joy. Joy for the Palestinian people. Joy for all those who hope for peace between Israel and the Arab world. And, in a modest way, for me personally. The General Assembly of the United Nations, the highest world forum, has voted overwhelmingly for the recognition of the …

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Of Bombs and Comics

Binyamin Netanyahu' cartoon bomb he used at the UN.

OCCUPIED TUCSON CITIZEN? 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 …

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