A Jewish Israeli Knesset member and former minister of defense, a senior Arab Israeli Knesset member and a top Palestinian politician from the occupied territories met last week in Tel Aviv. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but this rare encounter took place on Aug. 22 in the lobby of Sokolov House, the headquarters of the Israeli Journalists Association. Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz of the Zionist Camp, Joint List Chair Ayman Odeh and senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath shook hands over a simple wooden casket bearing the photo of journalist and former Knesset member Uri Avnery, who died two days earlier at the age of 94.
At the foot of the coffin lay a wreath from Yuli Edelstein, speaker of the Knesset. It's the same institution that recently adopted the nationality law discriminating between Israeli Jews and their Arab neighbors, the same parliament that has broken Israel’s record of racist legislation and is not nearly done. Even as the government was negotiating with Hamas, an organization preaching for the State of Israel’s annihilation, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas mourned his passage in a statement hailing his struggle against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory that began in 1967 and his championing of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.