Shimon Tzabar

Maybe its because I'm getting older or just frustrated with the other sections of my daily newspaper, but I've begun to read the obituaries regularly.

In today's Guardian there's an obituary of Shimon Tzabar, an Israeli painter, satirist and writer I hadn't previously heard of. What particularly caught my interest was the letter Tzabar co-signed in 1967 shortly after the 6-Day War. The letter, published as an advertisement in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is spot on in its analysis:

"Our right to defend ourselves from extermination does not give us the right to oppress others. Occupation entails foreign rule. Foreign rule entails resistance. Resistance entails repression. Repression entails terror and counter-terror. The victims of terror are mostly innocent people. Holding on to the occupied territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims. Let us get out of the occupied territories immediately."