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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: It was nice to talk with [Faisal Husseini], it was pleasant to be with him. We did a few things together. For example, we all thought that after the Oslo Accords the Palestinian prisoners would be set free. I don't know how many there were then, 10,000 or so – it seemed obvious. And when it didn't happen, it even surprised us. We also noticed that Yitzhak Rabin didn't appear to be fully committed to the matter, that he regarded peace to be a formality − treaties and agreements that are signed on, and he didn't seem to understand the essence of the conceptual, the spiritual aspect of peace. If Rabin had released all of the prisoners immediately as is customary in military morality − when you sign a peace treaty you release the prisoners of war – if that had happened and 10,000 people would have returned, every man to his village and to his neighborhood, it would have revolutionized the mood of the Arab public in Israel, convincing them that the matter of peace was real. Rabin was not such a man − to give something for nothing? He was influenced by the military people, experts on matters like security, who usually don't know anything about security, but only military techniques. So we decided to hold a joint demonstration for the first time since Oslo. Near Nablus there is a large prison, I forget what it is called, something like Soad, something like that. And we held a demonstration that had been called for by Orient House, Faisal Husseini and us, Gush Shalom. And that was certainly the biggest demonstration we were ever able to rally, I think there were 10,000 demonstrators, something like that. To be perfectly honest it was mostly Arabs from Nablus and families of the prisoners. But quite a lot, a not insignificant number of Israelis. Of course the army stopped us, and agreed to let three people go as far as the gates of the prison and submit a petition. And right away, three of the people who were there went. Afterwards it caused a lot of trouble, because we simply recruited this delegation on the spot, we consulted, said 'You, you and you', and we left. But we had women in Gush Shalom who created a scandal: 'Why three men? Where are the women?!' This caused a great uproar in Gush Shalom and many women left, and at the time I didn't even think about it.
