Two contributors to ‘The Price of Kings: Shimon Peres’, Rut Dayan and Uri Avnery, were Jews living in Palestine when the modern State of Israel was established by the British Government and the United Nations in 1947.
Both can clearly remember the civil war that followed in 1948, indeed, Uri Avnery has particularly strong memories of war, being a member of The Irgun, a Zionist paramilitary group, during the time of the conflict.
Price of Kings Director, Richard Symons, speaks to Uri Avnery about his memories of war [©SpiritLevelFilm]
Avnery became disenchanted with The Irgun and their activities in Palestine after the civil war, he recounts in the film that the actions of the Israeli forces were immoral, that they would “do practically everything to safeguard the salvation of the Jews”, even forcing Arabs in Palestine off their land, and shooting anyone who tried to return to their homes.
Uri Avnery stated in his interview with ‘The Price of Kings’: “I wrote during the war, about what we are doing, and why we are doing it, and why we should not do it, and why this was wrong; not just morally. I thought it was wrong politically because I was thinking about, 'what after the war? How do we get peace after the war?' And we are creating a situation where peace would become almost impossible.”
He went on to state, “People must remember that Palestine, the land of Palestine, was not divided into a Jewish territory and an Arab territory. Jews and Arabs lived intermingled everywhere.”
Uri Avnery’s testimony about the 1948 war and his experiences during conflict against Palestine provided a unique insight into the history of the Israel-Palestine situation, and why it has been so difficult to achieve peace in the region.
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Read more about the difficulties of achieving peace between Israel and Palestine
