Uri Avnery on Gilad Shalit

An interesting historical footnote in this op-ed over the long (US) weekend in Haaretz: Uri Avnery on Gilad Shalit. He's saying Shalit is a prisoner of war, not a "kidnapped soldier," but the point is it's the latest sign that Avnery is still willing to argue with Israel's establishment.

For the youngsters, Uri Avnery is the grand old man of Israeli left-peacenik politics, now aged 86 if Wikipedia has his birthdate right. Once a member of the Irgun (though he left it in 1942, before it was fighting other Zionists), he became the first Israeli who met with Yasir ‘Arafat during the siege of Beirut in 1982. He's always been a maverick. Until 1993 he published the tabloid-style Ha-Olam Hazeh (This World), which was his vehicle for his political views. A staunch secularist, he's long opposed the religious/settler/Orthodox right (and pretty much every other portion of the Israeli right).

It's a short op-ed, but it's nice to see he's still writing at 86, and doesn't seem to have mellowed much.