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Uri Avnery - My friend, the fanatic Abu-Tir (302/315)

109 views · Published 12 July 2017 · 5:08 · Indexed 1 November 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · News & Politics

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Uri Avnery (1923-2018) was an Israeli writer, journalist and peace activist. He was editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine 'HaOlam HaZeh' and founded the Gush Shalom peace movement. [Listener: Anat Saragusti; date recorded: 2017]

TRANSCRIPT: [AS] You did not tell me the story of Abu-Tir.

How did I get so far? Yes, surely. We became very good friends with Abu Tir. Abu Tir, this so-called Muslim fanatic, had a great sense of humour and it was very easy to make friends with him. As I have already said, in the protest tent a friendship grew up between Rachel, and me too, but mainly between Rachel and Sheikh Raed Salah, the king of Muslim fanatics. And it was the same with Abu Tir. Several times he invited us to come to his house. I met him in Al-Raam, at one of the demonstrations against the barrier wall, and we walked in the front row, Sirhan, Abu Tir and I, and we started talking politics. I was extremely curious to know what people like him think about Israel and peace. Then he said: 'This isn't a good place to have a political conversation. Come to my house in Tzur Baher'. So on Friday we went to Talpiot, East Talpiot, through Ramat Rachel, if I am not mistaken, to Tzur Baher, and we asked where Sheikh Abu Tir lives. The youth in the street looked at us suspiciously. 'Why do you need Sheikh Abu Tir?' They thought we might be undercover agents.   But in the end we found him. The entire family received us very cordially. He invited one or two of the leaders of Hamas in Jerusalem and we became friendly. It was like a continuation of the previous story of the exile and the reception in Gaza and so on. Until one day the hand of the regime fell on them and they were arrested, him and his friends. The authorities wanted to exile them to the occupied territories but they refused. They preferred to stay in prison instead of going to Ramallah. Then they conducted a sit-in strike. The Arab community leaders in Jerusalem, Hamas in particular, held a sit-in strike against the expulsion of Arabs from Jerusalem, at the Red Cross offices in Sheikh Jarrah, where a new series of demonstrations began. And instead of demonstrating in al-Ramm we started demonstrating in Sheikh Jarrah. We held a sit-in strike at the offices of the Red Cross, but it didn't help. At the end they were exiled. I don't know where he is today. I guess he is in the West Bank. Certainly his life isn't easy, because there's almost a civil war between Hamas and the PLO.

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