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Haim Guri
Aharon Amir
photo: Niv Calderon
Uri Avnery
Photo: Zvika Tishler

'Not the Israel we dreamed of'

Uri Avneri, Aharon Amir, and Haim Guri talk about what's left of 1948 dream. The greatest danger, they say, is within.

They are the sons of Israel's first generation, the ones who grew up fighting, shaping Israel, the first to live here as free men in their state. The dangers to our independence, they told Ynet, do not lurk abroad. They are within.

 

Three of Israel's founding generation's finest sons. Soldiers in the Palmach, Hagana and Lehi, they are now prominent figures in Israeli society: Uri Avneri, 83, journalist, author, former Knesset member,  radical left wing activist and editor of the legendary Ha'olam Haze newsmagazine; Aharon Amir, 84, poet, author, winner of the Israel Prize for translation and editor of "Ha'keshet Ha'hadasha" magazine; and Haim Guri, 83, poet, author, journalist, and filmmaker.

 

And they all have one bitter thing to say in common: "This is not the Israel we dreamed of".

 

We asked them what threatens Israel's existence on its 59th birthday. "Israel's independence is safe from outside threat, but great threats lie within", said Avneri. "Corruption is almost everywhere. The country bears no resemblance to what we had in mind when it was founded. We have completely lost all sense of responsibility for one another, of mercy and of compassion."

 

"Compared to any potential enemy around us, technologically, militarily, and scientifically, we have nothing to worry about," said Amir. "The problem is with our value system. We have been fed these socialist messianic visions about the kind of just society we should form here. These visions are obsolete, and we live in a capitalistic, bourgeois society instead".

 

"Sixty years later, this isn't where we thought we'd be", added Guri. "Alongside all the wonderful things that happened here, we have the terrible things, revealing society's wounds".

 

Huge gap between rich and poor 

"We are the single western society that has, to date, the largest gap between the rich and the poor. This is an existential danger", said Avnery when asked which social gaps pose the most threat to Israel. "There is a feeling of confusion, of lack of planning by the government and of moral deterioration", added Guri.

 

"This gap is mostly government-made", said Amir. "Eighteen families control almost everything, and the Finance Ministry doesn't fight it. Minimizing that is what we should be focused on." 

 

Corruption, immorality, lack of shame, just may be the signs of this passing year. "We have to be on the offense against all corruption. We must maintain some level of economical, governmental efficiency, even if that means a war against corruption", said Amir.

 

"The country will be shaken by what will come out in the courts in the future", said Guri. "We should be patient and wait for the courts to decide".

 

Morality now a dirty word 

"We use to think the corruption reported in Ha'olam Haze was so horrible," added Avnery. "Now it looks innocent. The public's value system has changed.

 

"I could never have imagined something as monstrous as someone coming back from the March of The Living smuggling a suitcase full of money, and years later, when it finally becomes public knowledge, that man is still in public office. If you needed something to symbolize corruption, this is it.

 

"Back than," he said, "People use to kill themselves if their corruption became public."

 

"Morality is a dirty word nowadays", said Avnery when asked if our society, our norms, the illusive sense of moral, have all changed. "Back then solidarity and innocence were corner stones of the society. People barely made ends meet, but believed they were building the ideal society. Today they would be considered suckers".

 

"We went from being a society based on partnership to one of an unbearable gap between social classes, the second largest after the United States", added Guri.

 

What's next, we asked, what state is the state in, and can it be rectified? "The second war in Lebanon shook us all up. Feelings of rage, frustration and despair continue to percolate, but I still believe we have a lot of wonderful thing in this country. We may pass our weapons down the generations," said Guri.

 

"But we also pass down our hopes". "We must always look at the horizon", said Amir. "I'm not saying we have no good men here", added Avnery. "Most of them are still here. We just can't see them".

 

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.23.07, 18:37
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