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Defamation Law was my turning point

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Side by side with my sworn enemy
Uri Avnery Social activist
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So Little Isser went to Begin and said: 'We want to arrest Uri Avnery as a Soviet agent'. Begin said: 'What evidence do you have?' Begin knew me and I had very good relations with Begin and he knew I was in Etzel before him. In the end Begin told him: 'Not only do I disagree, I'll make a huge commotion if you do it'.

He was not content with that. He took the person closest to him, Yaakov Meridor, who was not related to Minister Meridor, a different family. Meridor called me that he wanted to meet with me. He came to me and told me this story. He said that I should be careful, that I should be aware of the fact that there is such a scheme. That's it. Ben-Gurion was later deposed, Levi Eshkol took Little Isser as his expert, to remove him. Everyone was afraid of him because he was no longer head of the Shin Bet but rather head of all the security services, in charge of the security services. So to get him out of there, Levi Eshkol appointed him as his adviser on intelligence affairs. He had an office in the Prime Minister's office, and when there was this matter with the German scientists, Ben-Gurion got rid of him. Ben-Gurion got rid of Isser, first of all. Then Eshkol, Ben-Gurion's successor, took him on as an advisor and in the end he also got rid of him against a background of some sort of intrigue he was involved in – I forget what it was. At any rate it was real hatred, pathological in my opinion. Later I was elected to the Knesset and after that, four years later, Little Isser was also elected to the Knesset as part of Ben-Gurion's National List. And I found myself sitting next to him in the Knesset, side by side. We were both small factions so that's where we sat. And you are unable not to talk when you're sitting with people. So now and then we got into conversations and he told me stories. We did not talk about Rimon, of course, but we sat and we exchanged things here and there and ultimately it was rather funny. In his books he slanders and defames me.

אז איסר הקטן הלך לבגין ואמר: "אנחנו רוצים לאסור את אורי אבנרי בתור סוכן סובייטי". בגין אמר: "איזה הוכחות יש לכם?" בגין הכיר אותי ואני הייתי ביחסים מאוד טובים עם בגין והוא ידע שהייתי באצ"ל לפניו וכל מיני דברים כאלה. הסוף היה שבגין אמר לו: "לא רק שאני לא מסכים, אני אעשה מהומה גדולה אם תעשו את זה". הוא לא הסתפק בזה, לקח את האדם הכי קרוב שלו, יעקב מרידור, שלא קשור בשר מרידור, משפחה אחרת. ומרידור טלפן לי שהוא רוצה להיפגש אתי. בא אלי וסיפר לי את הסיפור הזה. הוא אמר לי שאני אזהר, שאני אדע שיש מזימה כזאת. זהו. אחר כך בן גוריון הודח, לוי אשכול לקח את איסר הקטן בתור המומחה שלו, בשביל לסלק אותו. כולם פחדו מפניו והוא כבר לא היה ראש השב"כ כי אם ראש של כל שירותי הבטחון, "הממונה על שירותי הבטחון”. אז בשביל לסלק אותו משם, לוי אשכול מינה אותו ליועץ שלו לענייני מודיעין. היה לו משרד במשרד ראש הממשלה, וכשהיה העניין הזה עם המדענים הגרמניים בן גוריון סילק אותו. בן גוריון סילק את איסר, קודם כל. ואז אשכול, היורש של בן גוריון, לקח אותו בתור יועץ של זה ובסוף הוא סילק אותו גם על רקע של איזושהי אינטריגה שהוא עשה, שכחתי מה. על כל פנים הוא היה שונא אמיתי, לדעתי פתולוגי. היה לזה זנב. אני קופץ קדימה: לימים נבחרתי לכנסת, ולימים, ארבע שנים אחרי נבחר לכנסת גם איסר הקטן בתוך הרשימה הממלכתית של בן גוריון. ואני מוצא את עצמי יושב בכנסת לידו, כיסא ליד כיסא. שנינו היינו סיעות קטנות אז ישבנו. ואתה לא יכול לא לדבר כשאתה יושב עם אנשים. אז פה ושם נכנסנו לשיחות והוא סיפר לי סיפורים. לא דיברנו על "רימון" ועל דברים כאלה כמובן, אבל ישבנו והחלפנו פה ושם דברים וזה היה בסופו של דבר די מצחיק. בספרים שלו הוא משמיץ אותי השמץ רב וזה.‏

Uri Avnery (1923-2018) was an Israeli writer, journalist and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. As a teenager, he joined the Zionist paramilitary group, Irgun. Later, Avnery was elected to the Knesset from 1965 to 1974 and from 1979 to 1981. He was also the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine, 'HaOlam HaZeh' from 1950 until it closed in 1993. He famously crossed the lines during the Siege of Beirut to meet Yasser Arafat on 3 July 1982, the first time the Palestinian leader ever met with an Israeli. Avnery was the author of several books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including '1948: A Soldier's Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem' (2008); 'Israel's Vicious Circle' (2008); and 'My Friend, the Enemy' (1986).

Listeners: Anat Saragusti

Anat Saragusti is a film-maker, book editor and a freelance journalist and writer. She was a senior staff member at the weekly news magazine Ha'olam Hazeh, where she was prominent in covering major events in Israel. Uri Avnery was the publisher and chief editor of the Magazine, and Saragusti worked closely with him for over a decade. With the closing of Ha'olam Hazeh in 1993, Anat Saragusti joined the group that established TV Channel 2 News Company and was appointed as its reporter in Gaza. She later became the chief editor of the evening news bulletin. Concurrently, she studied law and gained a Master's degree from Tel Aviv University.

Tags: Irgun, Etzel, Shin Bet, Knesset, Rimon, Litte Isser, Isser Harel, Menachem Begin, Yaakov Meridor, David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol

Duration: 3 minutes, 21 seconds

Date story recorded: October 2015

Date story went live: 11 May 2017