Uri Avneri - A Warrior for Peace

74 Minutes, 2002
Genre:
Documentary

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Directed by: Yair Lev
Production:Doron Tsabari
Production Company: Guerrilla Films
Photographer: Philippe Belaiche
Language: Hebrew
| Subtitles not available

Uri Avnery was a journalist, columnist, MP, far left activist, and as the film’s narrator explains at the start, “the man Israelis have loved to hate for over 50 years now. At every juncture in the history of the State of Israel, Avnery adopted diametrically oppositional views to the consensus, expressing opinions which many Israelis considered to be nothing short of treasonous.”
Avnery’s politics may have placed him in the fringes of Israeli politics however, his cinematic portrait is very much a mirror image of the country’s founding generation. A Jewish German immigrant, he fought with the Etzel (Irgun) paramilitary organisation in British Mandatory Palestine, then later bought the weekly magazine, This World (‘HaOlam HaZeh’), giving it a new lease of life, all the while campaigning tirelessly for peace on the basis of the two-state solution.
The film goes back and forth between archival material and interviews, to footage of Avnery and his wife, Rachel; highlighting their relationship and uncompromising, unyielding pro-peace political activism which included, amongst other things, attending Palestinian solidarity demonstrations in the Occupied Territories. “Not to draw a false equivalence but one might describe me in a similar manner to Prophet Jeremiah’s own account of himself, ‘a man of strife and a man of contention.’ If one has an inner truth which he must fight for – then one cannot, in good conscience, afford to go through life biting one’s tongue,” Avnery says about himself. In his film, Lev endeavours to capture the inherent unrest that seemed to underscore his fascinating protagonist’s public and private persona.
The film took home the Spirit of Freedom Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and was featured at countless others around the world.

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