Shimon Tzabar

Shimon Tzabar , also Shimon Tzabar ( Hebrew שמעון צבר; born on March 5, 1926 in Tel Aviv ; died March 19, 2007 in London ) was a painter , writer and journalist who described himself as a "Hebrew-speaking Palestinian".

Life

As a youth, Shimon Tzabar was initially a member of the right-wing Zionist youth organization Betar ; he wanted to become a member of the Irgun , which rejected him for ideological reasons. Later he came into the vicinity of the Lechi , but here too he was denied membership because he stood up for a common (binational) state of Jews and Arabs . Eventually he was accepted by the Palmach and later became a member of the Communist Party of Israel, from which he resigned after a few years. He fought in the Suez Crisis in 1956 and in the Six Day War in 1967 in the Israeli army , but he criticized the Israeli occupation and settlement of the Golan Heights , the West Bank and the Gaza Strip .

Shimon Tzabar's first journalistic assignment was the graphic design of the army magazine Ba-Machane . He later became a columnist and cartoonist for the daily Ha'aretz and the weekly Ha-'olam ha-ze .

On September 22, 1967, he published an advertisement in Ha'aretz - signed by twelve other well-known Israelis - demanding the withdrawal from the territories just occupied by Israel:

The right to oppose our annihilation does not give us the right to oppress others

Occupation means foreign rule

Foreign rule means resistance

Resistance means terror and counter-terror

The victims of terror are mostly innocent

If we keep the occupied territories, we will become a nation of murderers and murder victims

Let us leave the occupied territories immediately

The ad sparked a heated debate in Israel. In December 1967, Shimon Tzabar went to London and started publishing a satirical magazine , Israel Imperial News , which was also heavily attacked in Israel, and others. a. by Uri Avnery , the editor of Ha-'olam ha-ze . Shimon Tzabar also criticized pacifist groups in Israel such as Gush Shalom and Shalom Achshaw . He designed an alternative Israeli flag that featured a tank in the middle instead of the Star of David .

Shimon Tzabar has published 27 books in Hebrew, including travelogues, children's books, cookbooks, novels, political satires, and essays. He was a painter and was very interested in mushrooms.

In 2007, he published a brochure entitled [Much Better Than] The Official Michelin Guide to Israeli Prisons, Jails, Concentration Camps and Torture Chambers , whereupon Michelin threatened to file a lawsuit but withdrew it.

Shimon Tzabar was married and had two sons, Yo'av and Rami.

Works

• The principle of the white flag. How to lose a war and why . Ullstein 2003, ISBN 3-548-36442-X .

literature

• Lutz Fiedler: Matzpen: Another Israeli story. (= Writings of the Simon Dubnow Institute . Volume 025), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017, ISBN 978-3-525-37041-4

Web links

• Israel Imperial News
• Moshe Machover, Elizabeth Nussbaum: Shimon Tzabar . Israeli painter, satirist and writer, he opposed the occupation of the Palestinian territories . In: The Guardian , April 2, 2007.
• Tamara Traubmann: n / spages / 840080.html Shimon Tzabar, 81, this in London . In: Ha'aretz , March 22, 2007.
• Daphna Baram: Shimon Tzabar. Dissident writer and activist . In: The Independent , March 24, 2007.
• Florian Felix Weyh: The principle of the white flag . Deutschlandfunk , June 19, 2003
• Michelin sue over 'guide to jail' . BBC , October 18, 2004.
• Literature by and about Shimon Tzabar in the catalog of the German National Library