Joha’s nail —Uri Avnery

[bemildred]

One day Joha, the hero of popular Arab humour, sold his home. The price he demanded was ridiculously low though he had one condition: “on one of the walls there is a nail that I am much attached to. I don’t want to sell it.” The buyer readily agreed. Who cares about a nail?

After some days, Joha came to the house and hung his coat on the nail. After that he brought his bed and started to sleep in the house. “The nail is so dear to me, that I can’t bear sleeping away from it,” he explained. Another time he brought his family to visit the nail; they had a party there. In the end, the new owner couldn’t bear it anymore and bought the nail for a price higher than he had paid for the house.

Maybe the leaders of Israel do not know the story, but they behave in a similar manner.


Daily Times

[Team44Car]

1. amazing fellow, that Uri Avnery

[eyl]

2. Especially amazing

given that his examples are wrong or out-of-date

Tabba wasn't "obviously" Egyptian; even the UN agrees the Shabaa Farms aren't a part of Lebanon; and while he may have a point on the synagouges (at least if you assume - which I don't, necessarily) that leaving them was a calculated rather than an emotional decision) is old news by now*.

*Actually, the last Avneri article posted to the board also discussed events that were done (the efficacy of the police vs the settlers, potential mutiny in the IDF) with as if they were ongoing or had yet to occur. Are these articles being printed late, or isAvneri starting to suffer from delayed reactions?

[Violet_Crumble]

3. Taba wasn't obviously Egyptian?

What was it then, if not part of Egypt?

Considering this forum is chockers with recent articles on the disengagement, the synagogues, etc, I'm not seeing anything particularly outdated in what he wrote....

Violet...

[eyl]

4. ISTR

there was some dispute regarding the status of Taba, where Israel "had a point" - but I can't remember what it was exactly (grrr...damn memory).

By "outdated", I mean he's writing about events that already occurred as if they were occurring now, or had yet to occur. For example, here he's talking about Israel leaving the synagogues, when that's over and done. In the previous article you posted, he was talking about how the disengagement would cause mutiny in the IDF, and the police would have problems dealing with it; but in fact, the police acted very well, and cases of refusal were minimal.

EDIT - reading the article again, it seems I missed something. He does mention that the synagouges were destroyed; it seems he has something of a problem (inetnetional or not, I won't speculate) with tenses.