Uri Avnery - Summoned to meet Yasser Arafat (239/315) скачать в хорошем качестве

Uri Avnery - Summoned to meet Yasser Arafat (239/315)

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: Our hearts softened with wine, we returned to the hotel, I to my room and Sarit and Anat to theirs. At around midnight or after midnight, the phone suddenly rang in my room and a familiar voice on the other end asks me: 'Do you want to speak English or Hebrew?' I said: 'If possible, Hebrew'. It was Imad Shakur, and he said: 'The Rais is ready to meet you tomorrow'. I was totally confused. At first, I did not understand what he was saying. So I said: 'How do I get there?' He said: 'Get to the checkpoint near the museum where someone will be waiting for you and will bring you to the Rais'. OK, I was thinking feverishly about how and what to do, and then I remembered the German journalist who had raised the matter and who had given me his phone number. I phoned him after midnight and told him: 'I am going to meet with Arafat tomorrow – perhaps you want to come with me?' and he responded rather coldly: 'Let me think about it'. Ten minutes later the phone rings wildly, he says: 'I was asleep, I didn't understand what you meant. Of course I want to come with you! We'll meet, I'll collect you from the hotel'. He came to the hotel with his crew, his car, while we took a Beirut taxi. We sat in the Beirut taxi and followed the Germans' car. We approached the museum checkpoint and there was a traffic jam from here to forever. Why? Because the sides had agreed to open the border for one day because there were a lot of Christian merchants in eastern Beirut who had businesses in the western part of the city, and it was agreed to open the checkpoint for a few hours so they can manage their affairs. And we were in such a huge traffic jam. It started to be very annoying. Here we were stuck in traffic, and we couldn't go back if we wanted to, we were totally stuck. Nonetheless, it's rather frightening to be in such a traffic jam, heading toward an unknown area. I was very impatient as were the two journalists with me, so I said: 'I'll go to the Germans and I'll see what I can do'. So I took the head of the German team and we approached the checkpoint on foot. I thought I had returned to 1948 because the PLO looked just like the Palmach had in 1948: unkempt with beards, 'patchwork' uniforms. And it looked rather scary. I did not see anybody there that I was familiar with and it was quite frightening. We went back to the car and we waited a little longer since there was no choice. I got into the car with the Germans, and slowly, slowly we moved forward until we reached the checkpoint. We got out of the car. Of course the taxi could not go into the west. And what did I see at the checkpoint? At first I could not see anything. I could just see this wild gang of PLO fighters. I saw nothing that I was familiar with.