Hero #013: Uri Avnery … (05/21/16)
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer who is famous for crossing the lines during the Siege of Beirut to meet with Yassir Arafat on July 3, 1982 — the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli … Avnery is also the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including 1948: A Soldier’s Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem (2008); Israel’s Vicious Circle (2008); and My Friend, the Enemy (1986) … In late 1975, Avnery was among the founders of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. Shortly after the group’s founding, Avnery was assaulted and stabbed several times. Undaunted, he later turned to left-wing peace activism and founded Gush Shalom – a movement dedicated towards convincing the Israeli public that peaceful reconciliation is the proper path to take in dealing with the people of Palestine … He is a secularist and strongly opposed to the Orthodox influence in religious and political life … In 2001, Avnery and his wife Rachel Avnery were honored with the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, “for their unwavering conviction, in the midst of violence, that peace can only be achieved through justice and reconciliation.”
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