
Ethnic cleansing can be carried out dramatically (as in this country in 1948 and in Kosovo in 1998) or in a quiet and systematic way, by dozens of sophisticated methods, as is happening now in East Jerusalem. But there cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the final stage of the one-state vision of the rightists. The first stage will be an effort to fill the entire country with settlements, and to demolish any chance of implementing the two-state solution, which is the only realistic basis for peace. Read more »
July 24, 2010 | Posted in
Occupation,
Uri Avnery |
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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 more »

When Netanyahu calls it a flotilla of hate, is he lying? Not only Netanyahu, the ministers, too, in addition to a few people in uniform: the army chief of staff and the commander of the navy. In any well-run country, the head of the navy would have resigned that same night. Read more »

“Only a crazy government that has lost all restraint and all connection to
reality could something like that – consider ships carrying humanitarian aid
and peace activists from around the world as an enemy and send massive
military force to international waters to attack them, shoot and kill.” Read more »

Netanyahu is not even deceiving Obama. The American president knows full well that this is all play acting. He is very intelligent. He is not very courageous… This is a great victory for Netanyahu, his second over Obama. Not yet the decisive victory, but a victory that bodes ill for the chances of peace in the near future.
IOA Editor: Avnery is able to see through Thomas Friedman’s ‘advice,’ but he’s not considering the possibility that Obama is actually going exactly as far as he wants to, and entirely by choice: a verbal pursuit of Peace in the Middle East, not the sort that requires any action. Read more »

For Netanyahu, the threat of peace has passed. At least for the time being. It is difficult to understand how Obama allowed himself to get into this embarrassing situation. Read more »

On the morrow of the Six-day War, Amos Kenan came to my editorial office. He was in a state of shock. As a reserve soldier, he had just witnessed the emptying of three villages in the Latrun area. Men and women, old people and children, had been driven out in the burning June sun on a foot march in the direction of Ramallah, dozens of kilometers away. It reminded him of sights from the Holocaust.
IOA Editor: Kenan’s checkered past should be obvious to any reader of these pages (and Avnery’s account of history often leaves one wondering). This piece is included here because of Kenan’s role in revealing Israel’s conduct in 1967, specifically, the war crimes and ethnic cleansing that took place in the Latroun area. On this, see Imwas: occupied and destroyed by Israel in 1967, elsewhere on the IOA website. Read more »
August 8, 2009 | Posted in
History,
Uri Avnery |
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“Therefore I, a 95 year old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons… and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel, [d]eclare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions…”
IOA Editor: Avnery’s view of history is founded largely on his own imagination: Post-1948 Israel was a natural outcome of pre-statehood, and post-1967 Israel was a continuation of earlier years. But it fits with Avnery’s retrospective view of his life in Palestine/Israel. The key question conveniently left out by Avnery, and by the Dalia youth of 1947, was “what was to become of the Palestinian natives,” once the dancing stops and the fighting begins. However, the article reflects the internal tension in certain segments of Zionism, and this is why it is of interest. Read more »
August 1, 2009 | Posted in
History,
Uri Avnery |
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A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. Read more »

A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. Read more »