Uri Avnery, the three-time member of Knesset, columnist for the Ma?ariv daily and founding member of the extremist Gush Shalom organization, recently provided an article for the Saudi Arabian A-Sharq al-Awsat. Avnery?s piece, like others by Israeli leftist extremists, gets prominence in the Arab media, for, as an Israeli, he corroborates the Arab point of view and the libelous accusations regularly made against Israel in the Arab press.
Avnery?s article attempts to explain or excuse the existence of Arab terrorists (which is printed ?terrorists? in the article itself) by writing ?When a whole people is seething with rage, it becomes a dangerous enemy? When this rage overflows, it creates suicide bombers?? For Avnery, the murder of his fellow Israelis is merely Arab revenge for Jewish injustices. He writes, ?And then it appears that the rage is not helpless after all. The suicide bombers go forward to avenge, with a whole people blessing them and rejoicing at every Israeli killed, soldier or settler, a girl in a bus or a youngster in a discotheque.? According to Avnery, ?During the Oslo period, there were attacks too, but they were conducted by dissidents, fanatics, and the public aversion to them limited the damage they caused.?
Referring to US Vice President Dick Cheney, Avnery writes, ?American politicians, like Israeli officers, do not understand what they are doing. When an overbearing vice president dictates humiliating terms for a meeting with Arafat, he pours oil on the flames.? The ?flames? Avnery refers to are those of Arab rage, ignited by Israel.
The Israeli columnist repeatedly presents the Israeli operations to rout the terrorist infrastructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as vicious, random attacks on civilians, intentionally ignoring the terrorist outrages that preceded the recent IDF activity. Avnery writes, ?tanks run amok in the center of a town, crushing cars and destroying walls, tearing up roads, shooting indiscriminately in all directions? soldiers crash through a wall into the living room of a family, causing shock to children and adults, ransacking their belongings, destroying the fruits of a life of hard work, and then break the wall to the next apartment to wreak havoc there? soldiers shoot at everything that moves? officers order to shoot at ambulances, killing doctors and paramedics engaged in saving the lives of the wounded, bleeding to death? beloved brother has been killed? house has been destroyed in an orgy of vandalism? has been mortally humiliated before the eyes of his children?? Not just the army is guilty, however. Avnery accuses the Israeli ?obedient media? of [suppressing] the information, or [watering] it down so that the monster looks like a harmless pet.? Yet this supposed suppression is not voluntary, Avnery writes, ?The television? is now subject to Soviet-style censorship, does not tell its viewers what is going on.?
Avnery then implies a certain correlation between Israel and Nazi Germany when he writes, ??Give me a hatred gray like a sack,? wrote our poet, Nathan Alterman, seething with rage against the Germans. Hatred gray like a sack is now everywhere.? The Arabs, the a-Sharq article claims, will halt their terrorist activity only ?if the majority of the people are persuaded that their honor has been restored and their liberation guaranteed.?
Avnery?s article attempts to explain or excuse the existence of Arab terrorists (which is printed ?terrorists? in the article itself) by writing ?When a whole people is seething with rage, it becomes a dangerous enemy? When this rage overflows, it creates suicide bombers?? For Avnery, the murder of his fellow Israelis is merely Arab revenge for Jewish injustices. He writes, ?And then it appears that the rage is not helpless after all. The suicide bombers go forward to avenge, with a whole people blessing them and rejoicing at every Israeli killed, soldier or settler, a girl in a bus or a youngster in a discotheque.? According to Avnery, ?During the Oslo period, there were attacks too, but they were conducted by dissidents, fanatics, and the public aversion to them limited the damage they caused.?
Referring to US Vice President Dick Cheney, Avnery writes, ?American politicians, like Israeli officers, do not understand what they are doing. When an overbearing vice president dictates humiliating terms for a meeting with Arafat, he pours oil on the flames.? The ?flames? Avnery refers to are those of Arab rage, ignited by Israel.
The Israeli columnist repeatedly presents the Israeli operations to rout the terrorist infrastructure in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as vicious, random attacks on civilians, intentionally ignoring the terrorist outrages that preceded the recent IDF activity. Avnery writes, ?tanks run amok in the center of a town, crushing cars and destroying walls, tearing up roads, shooting indiscriminately in all directions? soldiers crash through a wall into the living room of a family, causing shock to children and adults, ransacking their belongings, destroying the fruits of a life of hard work, and then break the wall to the next apartment to wreak havoc there? soldiers shoot at everything that moves? officers order to shoot at ambulances, killing doctors and paramedics engaged in saving the lives of the wounded, bleeding to death? beloved brother has been killed? house has been destroyed in an orgy of vandalism? has been mortally humiliated before the eyes of his children?? Not just the army is guilty, however. Avnery accuses the Israeli ?obedient media? of [suppressing] the information, or [watering] it down so that the monster looks like a harmless pet.? Yet this supposed suppression is not voluntary, Avnery writes, ?The television? is now subject to Soviet-style censorship, does not tell its viewers what is going on.?
Avnery then implies a certain correlation between Israel and Nazi Germany when he writes, ??Give me a hatred gray like a sack,? wrote our poet, Nathan Alterman, seething with rage against the Germans. Hatred gray like a sack is now everywhere.? The Arabs, the a-Sharq article claims, will halt their terrorist activity only ?if the majority of the people are persuaded that their honor has been restored and their liberation guaranteed.?