I might add on a personal note that Uri Avnery's articles regularly appear in newspapers throughout the Arab world. This certainly sends a message that their are Jewish-Israeli's who are trying hard to reach out for peaceful coexistence. Mr. Avnery's work does a great deal to create good will and understanding with Israel's Arab neighbors. I would also add that he is an uncompromising supporter of the two-state solution which he views as the only plausible way to end the conflict Uri Avnery -- former Irgun Commando, 1948 Israeli war hero, former member of the Israeli Knesset -- Peace Activist:
born: September 10, 1923, Beckum, Germany immigration to Palestine: November1933.... member of the Irgun underground under Menachem Begin, 1938-1942. At the outbreak of the 1948 war, Avnery joined the army (Givati brigade) and later volunteered for "Samson's Foxes", a motorized commando unit on the Egyptian front which soon became legendary. He took part in dozens of engagements, became a squad leader, and was severely wounded in the last days of the war at Iraq al-Manshiyya (the present Kiryat Gat). His life was saved by four soldiers of his squad, new immigrants from Morocco, who rescued him under murderous fire and enabled him to reach hospital in time. There, a part of his intestines was cut out.
Son of a well-established German-Jewish family, originally from the Rhine area. ....
His father was a private banker in Beckum, and later on a financial adviser in Hannover, where his family lived in an upper-class neighborhood. A Zionist from an early age, his father decided, immediately upon Hitler's ascent to power in 1933, to take the family to Palestine. Avnery still experienced the first half year of the Nazi regime, as the only Jew in school, and his impressions of the last years of the Weimar republic and the beginning of the Nazi era are imprinted in his memory. He wrote a book about this (The Swastika, 1961).
He arrived with his family in Haifa in November 1933 and lived for half a year in Nahalal, the legendary Moshav, in order to "get acclimatized". Then his family moved to Tel-Aviv, where he has lived ever since......"
Uri Avnery peace activist, journalist, writer.
founding member, Gush Shalom (peace bloc), independent peace movement (1993)
former publisher and editor-in-chief, Haolam Hazeh news magazine (1950-1990)
former member of the Knesset (three terms: 1965-1969, 1969-1973, 1979-1981)
founding member, Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (1975)
columnist, Internet.
link for a more complete biography:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/about/1177150070 -------------------------
For more article by Uri Avnery:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery .