MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 4 Oct 2004: Israel's aging self-professed 'leftist peacenik', Uri Avneri, has taken of late to charging all those who have pointed the finger of blame and guilt at the Jewish Neocons and the Israeli-Jewish Lobby in Washington as 'anti-semites'. They who dare point such fingers of responsiblity at the Neocons, the Lobby, and by extension Israel itself are modern-day descendants, according to Avneri's latest blast, of those who professed the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.

Though Avneri's charges are outrageous and scurrilous, coming from him they will intimidate and silence at least some who pay little attention to Sharon's similar diatribes; especially if they do not know Avneri's past...as few will.

For with this latest clever screetch Uri Avneri is true to character and reputation -- a gifted opportunist journalist who has continually fanned his own fortunes and intriques for some time now. For at the end of the day, carefully analyzed, Avneri has always pursued a crafty Israeli Zionist agenda always shifting on que for 'leftist' political correctness and self-gain a long the way. And now, Avneri, along with many Israelis and Jews, rightly fears that if things continue to deteriorate at some point Israel will be the direct target of blame for it's major contribution to having brought about such terrorism in the world and pushing the U.S. into invading Iraq. It is an understandable fear; for it is to a significant degree true.

The full Avneri article published this past weekend can be found in the MER World Section. Below, from the MER archives, these insights originally published in 1998 and 2001 with regard to Uri Avneri and his purported leadership of Israel's much over-rated and considerably Zionist-in-allegiance 'Peace Movement'.

MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/10/2001: The Israeli writer and activist Uri Avneri is "on tour" in the USA on his way to Washington. It shouldn't come as a surprise that a few naive or on- the-take "peace groups" -- Jewish and otherwise -- have invited him to speak. There's a long history in the U.S. of the so-called Middle East "left" being laughably manipulated and co-opted, in the process inviting the wrong people at times of opportunity, and as they do so actually helping support politically correct policies of the moment -- knowingly or not. Though the world of Jewish and "progressive" affairs in the U.S. is much more complicated and multi-faceted than that of the Arab Americans, there are many "client organizations" as well as oh-so-naive local organizations out there as well. Furthermore, of course, as this game is played out it is all done in lieu of actually inviting the much more independent and trustworthy persons who could actually inform people in the U.S. what is really going on in the Middle East and in Israel/Palestine...and most importantly why.

This is hardly the complete story, and Avneri is an interesting writer/speaker and colorful personality, but by way of information and warning this from MER's files published a few years ago -- for those who want to know what's really going on:

ISRAELI SCENE: URI AVNERI - ARAFAT'S PROPAGANDIST

URI AVNERI DISCREDITS ISRAELI LEFT, TAKES ON
PROPAGANDIST ROLE FOR ARAFAT

"...The corruption within the Palestinian Authority...
is not widespread."

"...Should something happen to Arafat, it would be
a disaster of national proportions."

"...Palestinians are not afraid to loudly voice
their sharp criticism."

Uri Avneri, Israeli writer

LONG HISTORY OF DECEPTIONS AND
OPPORTUNISM FROM AVNERI

MER - Washington - 5 February, 1998: One of the reasons the real Israeli left is so demoralized and confused -- and has so tragically abdicated to the deceptive left of the Israeli Labor Party better known as "Peace Now" -- is the untrustworthiness of many of its key personalities. Uri Avneri is one of these persons. And as amazing as it might seem in view of the realities of the Arafat regime, the quotes above are translated from a Hebrew column Avneri recently published. After a start in the Israeli terrorist right-wing underground, Avneri, now in his mid-70s, was one of the first Israelis to begin meeting with the PLO. During the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982, Avneri was one of the first Israeli journalists to interview Yasser Arafat.

The basic problem for Avneri has been that the more people have come to know him over the years, the more they have realized how little he could be truly trusted or believed.

For years Avneri made his money publishing an Israeli equivalent of the NATIONAL INQUIRER -- a tabloid, gossip, sex publication that was the first and only of its kind in Israel and sold well. Then when he had had enough of scandal-mongering journalism, the supposedly committed leftist sold his publication to Israeli right-wingers considerably enriching himself in the process. Some even began to wonder if Avneri hadn't been a kind of mole -- wittingly or unwittingly -- all along.

Whatever the reasons and motivations for Avneri's dealings, with this kind of personal background it certainly becomes easier to understand why Avneri gets along so well with Arafat and with the corrupt, self-aggrandizing officials of the "Palestinian Authority".

Avneri has tried to organize a number of what he has said were pro-Palestinian movements. But non of these have ever had any substantial following in Israel. And his latest ploy, rumored to be funded by Arafat, to boycott products produced by Israeli settlers in the territories, is said to have instead given Israeli right-wingers the very list they need to purchase more of those products. In recent years Avneri's efforts have deteriorated to the point where he now seems to border on being little more than a propagandist for Arafat and what in the end is Israel's armed and funded PA, a puppet regime primarily responsible for policing the "autonomous" Palestinian areas with ever-growing CIA and Shin bet "assistance".

Avneri writes, among so many other out and out deceptions, that much open debate and democracy has been fostered by the PA! It seems not to matter to him that the best journalists in the world, David Hirst and Robert Fisk among them, have been reporting in detail, story after story, precisely the opposite. It seems not to matter to him that professors and journalists have been arrested and literally tortured by Avneri's new friends. It seems not to matter to him that one of the leading Palestinian human rights organizations issued a report -- ironically about the same time Avneri's article was published -- specifically condemning Arafat for creating the infrastructure of a "Police State" and that Palestinians are looking on in horror and fear.

And yet Avneri continues: "What is most instructive is the fact of the debate itself (among the Palestinians); even high-ranking (PA) officials are not afraid to loudly voice their sharp criticism."

Whether it is old age, lack of information, nostalgia for the days of his old salacious tabloid, or something more sinister, who can know for sure. Whatever, Avneri's long history of scandal-mongering and personal aggrandizement seem to be playing themselves out in new ways. And in the end he seems to have done more to discredit the badly confused, divided, and demoralized Israeli left than to truly lead it.

---

Israeli Prof Urges Blank Vote

MER - February 5, 2001: What's left of Israel's left is in a fractured and demoralized state of affairs. Not only is Ariel Sharon about to become Israel's Prime Minister, but in all likelihood he is to be swept into power tomorrow in a landslide unprecedented in Israel's history. Worse yet, many on the left are reduced to having General Barak and Shimon Peres as their champions. It's a cruel twist of fate; but it is also one that has been nurtured for decades now by the failure of Israel's left, coupled with "liberal" American Jewry, to come together and present a credible and principled alternative.

For some on the left like Uri Avneri, they have been doing what they could to rally the vote for Barak and for Oslo. They've failed miserably. But then Avneri, while an insightful and even courageous journalist, has been largely discredited by his fronting for the Arafat regime no matter what, not to mention by his decades of building a reputation as someone not to be personally trusted. Indeed just some 20 months ago Avneri was jumping up and down cheering and partying upon the election of Ehud Barak and shouting how the era of peace had finally come. We've written before about the dark contrast between Avneri's energetic activism and his lack of personal integrity and credibility.

For others on the left, like Professor Tanya Reinhart, integrity and credibility are high, but following very limited. Rather than cheering when Barak was elected, Reinhart was writing profound articles explaining that Barak had created a government of retired army generals and top intelligence agents; that Barak's policies were deceptively treacherous, dangerous, and that war clouds were already gathering. MER published many of those articles back in the days when applauding Barak and proclaiming the new era of peaceful relations between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arabs was near universal in the major media.

The likelihood is that the what's left of the left will be rejuvenated by the coming of Sharon. There will be articles, demonstrations, protests, dialogue meetings with Palestinians. But don't expect any of this to amount to very much very soon. The "BullDozer" (that's Sharon's latest nickname for those who may have forgotten) isn't going to be stopped by what's left of the left; a left which needs a total ideological as well as political facelift and makeover, not to mention a new champion. MER