Peace Advocate Says U.S. Faces Dilemma in Mideast

The need for peace in the Middle East, and a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, has become the most important foreign policy issue for the United States, Uri Avnery told an audience of about 75 yesterday evening at the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

The German-born Avnery, 78, holds a controversial but influential international status as an Israeli peace advocate who strongly supports Palestinian independence.

Sitting in a packed seminar room in Coolidge Hall, Avnery focused his remarks around the World Trade Center attacks of Sept. 11 and the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

“Those of you who are Jews,” he said, “may be put very shortly in a very difficult situation,” as the interests of the United States and of Israel head “on a collision course.”

As a result of the United States involvement in the Middle East, which many Arab nations term pro-Israel, Avnery said that the American administration faces the complex job of creating an international coalition to help fight terrorism. This would have to include Arab and Muslim states, Avnery said, many of whom perceive an unwarranted pro-Israel bias in U.S. foreign policy.

In 1950, Avnery established an opinionated mass-circulation newspaper, Haolam Hazeh.

He later served as a three-term member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, from 1965 to 1981.

In 1982, Avnery became the first Israeli to meet with a Palestinian leader when he spoke with Yassir Arafat during the battle of Beruit. Members of the Israeli government called for his trial on charges of treason.

Osama bin Laden, Avnery said, does not care about the Palestinian issue, although the media has often focused on the dynamic between the United States and Palestinians.

Instead, Avnery said, bin Laden’s primary purpose is to topple the ruling monarchy of Saudi Arabia by capitalizing on the current negativity amongst the Arab world towards American foreign policy.

Gush Shalom, the Israeli peace group Avnery helped to establish in 1992, calls for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the closure of Israeli settlements, the release of all Palestinian prisoners and the declaration of Jerusalem as a joint capital of the two states.

In recent years, Gush Shalom has found itself more isolated in supporting its cause. This is due in part, Averny said , to the moderate policies of Ehud Barak, Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001.

Avnery believes that therefore “practically everyone in Israel says ‘Barak has offered them everything and they have rejected everything. This means that the Palestinians and Arafat never really wanted peace.’”

The long-standing conflict over Palestinian territory, according to Avnery, is due to the fact that the Israelis and Arabs “contradict each other on every single detail of the last few hundred years.”

Avnery has long been involved in pro-Palestinian causes.

This year, he will receive the Right Livelihood Award in Stockholm, Sweden. The award has sometimes been called the “Alternative Nobel Peace Prize.” Avnery currently serves as a columnist for Ma-ariv, Israel’s second largest newspaper.