HANADON: URI AVNERY

Journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery is a man who Israelis have loved to hate for over 50 years. “The last Mohican of the radical left”, Avenry has devoted his life to promoting the idea of two states for two nations, and for this he has paid a price: the head of the General Security Services proclaimed him Public Enemy number 1”, the offices of his newspaper were burned down an several attempts were made at his life. Despite his significant contribution to shaping the State of Israel, Avnery lives on the fringe of Israeli public opinion, and is a living example of the saying “one cannot be a prophet in ones own city.”

Uri Avnery: Warrior for Peace deals with memory and oblivion through the story of a complex and controversial man whose life encompasses the spirit of a period and the history of a nation, one of the last of a generation from whom ideology, political fervor and belief that it is possible to change the world (or at least, to build a just society in Israel) did not provoke contemptuous post-modernist derision. The film combines interviews with associates and archival footage to recount Avnery’s life story, while following Avnery and his wife Rachel during the dramatic past two years, a period that has turned Avnery’s dream into a more remote possibility.