Since the Gush Shalom website was established, a new article by Uri Avnery appeared every week in this column. In fact, these articles were a continuation of the editorials written by Uri Avnery in “Haolam Hazeh” weekly since the 1950’s. The article “So who the hell are we?” Was published here on Friday, August 4, … Read more
YEARS AGO I had a friendly discussion with Ariel Sharon. I told him: “I am first of all an Israeli. After that I am a Jew.” He responded heatedly: “I am first of all a Jew, and only after that an Israeli!” That may look like an abstract debate. But in reality, this is the … Read more
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is a perfect diplomat, a clever politician, a talented leader of the army. Lately, another jewel has been added to his crown: he is also a gifted story-teller. He has provided an answer to a question that has perplexed historians for a long time: When and how did Adolf Hitler decide to exterminate … Read more
ONE CAN look at events in Gaza through the left or through the right eye. One can condemn them as inhuman, cruel and mistaken, or justify them as necessary and unavoidable. But there is one adjective that is beyond question: They are stupid. If the late Barbara Tuchman were still alive, she might be tempted … Read more
The State of Israel has no oil wells. It has no gold mines. What has it got? It has the ownership of the remembrance of the Holocaust. That is worth a lot. Everyone who wants to clean himself from the stain needs a certificate from the State of Israel. Such a document is worth very … Read more
IN THE late 1980s, my secretary told me that the Deputy Chief of Staff wanted to see me. That was rather surprising. The army command was not on friendly terms with my paper, Haolam Hazeh. For dozens of years we had been officially boycotted by the army, after publishing a story which the then Chief … Read more
PRINCE WILLIAM, Duke of Cambridge, second in line to the British throne, visited Israel this week. He seems a likable person. He looked like a prince should look, did all the right things, said all the right things, and even ate a watermelon with our mayor on the sandy shore of Tel Aviv. If the … Read more
“AS LONG as in the heart, within, a Jewish soul is yearning…” thus starts the official translation of Israel’s national anthem. Actually, the Hebrew original says “the soul of a Jew”, but the translator probably got it right. It’s the Jewish Soul that was meant. But is there a Jewish Soul? Is it different from … Read more
After commenting on most of the episodes on the first Israeli Prime Ministers in Raviv Drucker’s TV series “The Captains”, I must come back to the one whose episode I have not yet covered: Yitzhak Rabin. Let me state right from the beginning: I liked the man. He was a man after my own heart: … Read more
IT’S FRIGHTENING. Unprincipled psychologists, in the service of a malignant regime, use sophisticated techniques in order to control the mind of a person from afar. The term “brainwashing” was born in 1950. It is a Chinese word (“xinao”, literally wash brain). Originally it served to describe a technique used – so it was claimed – … Read more