Extreme left-wing pioneer Uri Avnery passed away on Monday at Tel Aviv's Achilov Hospital following a stroke he suffered earlier this month.
Avnery, 94, was a member of the Irgun before serving as a Knesset member from 1965-74 and again from 1979-81. He was the owner of HaOlam HaZeh, a left-wing Israeli magazine from 1950 until its close in 1993.
Avnery is notorious for crossing enemy lines to meet with Yasser Arafat in 1982 during the Siege of Beirut. He is the author of several books on the Arab-Israeli conflict and campaigned for a Palestinian state at a time when the idea was only supported by the radical left-wing fringe.
Uri Avnery's pro-Arab activism caused him to be disowned by his own mother, who regarded him as a traitor. "I do not leave a penny to my son Uri, who instead of taking care of me went off to visit that murderer Yasser Arafat," Hilda Ostermann famously wrote in her will.
Avnery also founded the radical left-wing 'Gush Shalom' movement and wrote a weekly column in Haaretz. He was eulogized by Joint List Chairman MK Ayman Odeh, who said that Avnery was "a special individual who dedicated his life to peace, to a better future for both nations, and to the establishment of a Palestinian State. His voice, his ideas, and his worldview will continue to echo even after his passing."