Uri Avnery - Our introduction to the Maronites of Lebanon (238/315) скачать в хорошем качестве

Uri Avnery - Our introduction to the Maronites of Lebanon (238/315)

To listen to more of Uri Avnery’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Uri Avnery (Social activist)   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: There were two friends from the newspaper with me – the reporter Sarit Yishai and the photographer Anat Saragusti, and we decided to go out for the evening. Where? There was nothing much to do in Beirut, but north of Beirut, a few miles away, there is the town of Jounieh that was in Christian hands and we went there. It resembles Haifa and Acre, a bay and then the northern part of the bay. So we went there. It was a nice port filled with yachts, we met a lot of rich Lebanese. Who can maintain a yacht? Only rich men. We walked around, and when they heard that we were Israelis, we became a tourist attraction and everyone wanted to meet us and invite us in. Everyone wanted to take us to his boat, his ship. We had coffee on this boat and on that boat. And then, when we walked down the street… yes, I had my car, I brought my car from Israel. We were on the main street, a bourgeois Lebanese man approached us, a rich Lebanese, who heard that we were Israelis − we must come with him, he has a family celebration and we have to come with him. Okay, we went with him. We met a large group of rich Lebanese Maronites, eating and drinking, and I talked with the men who were in the room separately, of course, and I saw and talked with them. They had no idea who I was, except that I was an Israeli. Someone asked me: 'Well, what are you going to do in West Beirut?' I said: 'I don't know, I don't think we will go into West Beirut'. He said: 'What? You have to go in'. [AS] When they said 'you', they meant the Israeli Army? Yes, yes, Israel. So I asked him: 'And what will we do in West Beirut?' He says: 'Kill them all'. For a moment I thought he was joking. No, it was most absolutely serious. That was the first time I got the impression of the murderous hatred that led where it led to in the end.