Uri Avnery fought for decades for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. This wish was not fulfilled in his lifetime. He has now died, aged 94.
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Uri Avnery was never one for sitting still. Even just a year ago, at the age of 93, the Israeli peace activist was still full of zest. "We need a new political power, and I am absolutely ready to take part," he said in an interview. After all, it was a "key duty" to drive out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and "the whole crew." He was still the same: An indefatigable fighter who was not afraid of those with power.
Avnery was unable to carry out his plan: He died overnight Monday in Ichilov General Hospital in Tel Aviv at the age of 94 following a stroke.
But even if this last goal remains unfulfilled, Avnery has left his mark on the history of his country — and shoes that will be difficult to fill.
Avnery was involved in political work for some 70 years. He advocated reconciliation with the Palestinians over the past five decades. And for 10 years, he served in Israel's parliament, the Knesset. An exceptional phenomenon, as the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called him on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
Escape from the Nazi regime
Avnery's eventful life began in 1923 in the small city of Beckum, in the northwestern Westphalia region of Germany. He was born under the name of Helmut Osterman and grew up in a liberal, middle-class, secular family. After Adolf Hitler seized power, the family emigrated to Palestine in 1933. Looking back, he called this the "beginning of a second life" and a "salvation."
A history of the Middle East peace process
For over half a century, disputes between Israelis and Palestinians over land, refugees and holy sites remain unresolved. DW gives you a short history of when the conflict flared and when attempts were made to end it.
UN Security Council Resolution 242, 1967
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, passed on November 22, 1967, called for the exchange of land for peace. Since then, many of the attempts to establish peace in the region have referred to 242. The resolution was written in accordance with Chapter VI of the UN Charter, under which resolutions are recommendations, not orders.
Image: Getty Images/Keystone
Camp David Accords, 1978
A coalition of Arab states, led by Egypt and Syria, fought Israel in the Yom Kippur or October War in October 1973. The conflict eventually led to the secret peace talks that yielded two agreements after 12 days. This picture from March 26, 1979, shows Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, his US counterpart Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin after signing the accords in Washington.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/B. Daugherty
The Madrid Conference, 1991
The US and the former Soviet Union came together to organize a conference in the Spanish capital. The discussions involved Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians — not from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) — who met with Israeli negotiators for the first time. While the conference achieved little, it did create the framework for later, more productive talks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Hollander
Oslo I Accord, 1993
The negotiations in Norway between Israel and the PLO, the first direct meeting between the two parties, resulted in the Oslo I Accord. The agreement was signed in the US in September 1993. It demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from West Bank and Gaza Strip and a self-governing, interim Palestinian authority be set up for a five-year transitional period. A second accord was signed in 1995.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Sachs
Camp David Summit Meeting, 2000
US President Bill Clinton invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to the retreat in July 2000 to discuss borders, security, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. Despite the negotiations being more detailed than ever before, no agreement was concluded. The failure to reach a consensus at Camp David was followed by renewed Palestinian uprising, the Second Intifada.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/R. Edmonds
The Arab Peace Initiative, 2002
The Camp David negotiations were followed first by meetings in Washington and then in Cairo and Taba, Egypt — all without results. Later the Arab League proposed the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut in March 2002. The plan called on Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders so that a Palestinian state could be set up in the West Bank and Gaza. In return, Arab countries would agree to recognize Israel.
Image: Getty Images/C. Kealy
The Roadmap, 2003
The US, EU, Russia and the UN worked together as the Middle East Quartet to develop a road map to peace. While Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas accepted the text, his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon had more reservations with the wording. The timetable called for a final agreement on a two-state solution to be reached in 2005. Unfortunately, it was never implemented.
Image: Getty Iamges/AFP/J. Aruri
Annapolis, 2007
In 2007, US President George W. Bush hosted a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch the peace process. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas took part in talks with officials from the Quartet and over a dozen Arab states. It was agreed that further negotiations would be held with the goal of reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Thew
Washington, 2010
In 2010, US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to and implement a 10-month moratorium on settlements in disputed territories. Later, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all issues. Negotiations began in Washington in September 2010, but within weeks there was a deadlock.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Milner
Cycle of escalation and ceasefire continues
A new round of violence broke out in and around Gaza in late 2012. A ceasefire was reached between Israel and those in power in the Gaza Strip, which held until June 2014. The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014 resulted in renewed violence and eventually led to the Israeli military operation Protective Edge. It ended with a ceasefire on August 26, 2014.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Paris summit, 2017
Envoys from over 70 countries gathered in Paris, France, to discuss the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Netanyahu slammed the discussions as "rigged" against his country. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives attended the summit. "A two-state solution is the only possible one," French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said at the opening of the event.
Image: Reuters/T. Samson
Deteriorating relations in 2017
Despite the year's optimistic opening, 2017 brought further stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. A deadly summer attack on Israeli police at the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, sparked deadly clashes. Then US President Donald Trump's plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem prompted Palestinian leader Abbas to say "the measures ... undermine all peace efforts."
Image: Reuters/A. Awad
Trump's peace plan backfires, 2020
US President Donald Trump presented a peace plan that freezes Israeli settlement construction but retains Israeli control over most of the illegal settlements it has already built. The plan would double Palestinian-controlled territory but asks Palestinians to cross a red line and accept the previously constructed West Bank settlements as Israeli territory. Palestinians reject the plan.
Image: Reuters/M. Salem
Conflict reignites in 2021
Plans to evict four families and give their homes in East Jerusalem to Jewish settlers led to escalating violence in May 2021. Hamas fired over 2,000 rockets at Israel, and Israeli military airstrikes razed buildings in the Gaza Strip. The international community, including Germany's Foreign Ministry, called for an end to the violence and both sides to return to the negotiating table.
Image: Mahmud Hams/AFP
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Helmut Ostermann became Uri Avnery. In his younger years, he joined the terrorist and ultranationalist organization "Irgun," which carried out attacks on the British Mandatory power. Even years later, he did not regret this decision. "At the time, it was the best thing I could have done … I thought it was my duty to fight so that the country was liberated.” This is probably also the reason why Avnery fought in the 1948 Palestine war, in which he was badly injured.
From national hero to ‘most-hated Israeli'
What came next was a fascinating transformation. Avnery wrote a patriotic book about his experiences and became a kind of national hero. But with the second book about the dark side of the war, as well as with his work for the government-critical news magazine haOlam haZeh, enthusiasm for Avnery began to flag in some segments of the population. Several observers even say he was sometimes the "most-hated Israeli."
Both in his work as a journalist and during the years as a member of the Knesset, Avnery supported an ambitious project: Peace with the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state. In the course of his efforts to bring these things about, he sought contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and in 1982 became the first Israeli to meet its leader, Yasser Arafat. Avnery did not allow himself to be deterred by the criticism this aroused; there was even another meeting and a book with the title "My Friend, the Enemy".
Avnery met with Arafat several timesImage: picture-alliance/dpa
His decades-long efforts to bring about reconciliation brought him international recognition and awards, including the Aachen Peace Prize and the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize." Avnery, who also founded the peace movement Gush Shalom, worked for many years together with his wife Rachel, until she died in 2011.
And even if he was sometimes decried by the Israeli right wing as a "radical leftist" or "enemy of the state," Avnery just kept on. To the very last, he remained in demand as a go-to person on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict both at home and abroad. Some years ago, he told DW: "It's always good when Israelis and Palestinians sit down across from each other and negotiate together." He himself preferred the role of an independent observer who called for compromises from all sides. This made it possible for him to criticize both the Israeli "occupying regime" in the Palestinian territories and violence toward Israel in one and the same breath.
But Avnery saw no allies in the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Netanyahu. "You can basically forget about the words 'two-state solution.' This current government doesn't want a two-state solution," he told DW. But even this was no reason for resignation as far as this tireless peace activist was concerned. "Pessimism means nothing to me. I am never pessimistic." This may have been the only way Avnery could fight for a peace that is seemingly ever more remote.
