Michel Warschawski
Michel Warschawski (Mikado) (Hebrew: מיכאל ורשבסקי (מיקאדו)) is an Israeli anti-Zionist activist. He led the Marxist Revolutionary Communist League (previously Matzpen-Jerusalem) until its demise in the 1990s, and founded the Alternative Information Center, a joint Palestinian-Israeli non-governmental organization, in 1984.
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[edit] Biography
Michel Warschawski was born 1949 in Strasbourg, where his father was the Rabbi. At the age of 16 he moved to Jerusalem, in order to study the Talmud – he is a graduate of Mercaz HaRav. He later studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Despite having long since stopped being religious, fellow-activists on occasion turn to him to elicidate subtle points of the Jewish religion.[citation needed]
In 1982, Warschawski was one of the co-founders of Yesh Gvul, a term which plays on thre meanings, (1)'there is a border': 'there is a limit': and 'enough's enough'.[1] In 1984, Warschawski established the Alternative Information Center (AIC), an organization uniting Israeli and Palestinian anti-Zionist activists.
In 1987, Warschawski was arrested for "providing services for illegal (Palestinian) organizations" and sentenced in 1989 to twenty months prison, with a 10-months suspended sentence, for typesetting a booklet that the judges ruled had come from members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which described torture and interrogation techniques allegedly employed by Israel's security apparatus, with advice on how to withstand them. The court determined that Warschawsky was unaware of the booklet's origins, but guilty of closing his eyes to the evidence.[2]
Warschawski is a writer and journalist, whose articles appear regularly in International Viewpoint, Le Monde diplomatique, ZNet, Monthly Review, Sine Hebdo and other publications. In the 2006 elections to the Knesset, he was a candidate on the list of an Arab Israeli party Balad (the National Democratic Assembly).
Warschawski is married to attorney and human rights activist Leah Tsemel, and is the father of two sons and a daughter[3].
[edit] Quotes from AIC Articles
- “One has to unequivocally reject the very idea (and existence) of a Jewish state, whatever will be its borders.” - (Michel Warschawski, The Haifa Conference for the Right of Return, June 2008)[citation needed]
- "Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Olmert--don’t you dare show your faces at any memorial ceremony for the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, Lublin, Vilna or Kishinev… You are not representing any continuity with the Warsaw Ghetto, because today the Warsaw Ghetto is right in front of you, targeted by your own tanks and artillery, and its name is Gaza..." - (Michel Warschawski, Absolutely Not in Their Name, Not in Ours, AIC, January 18, 2009)
- ... [4]
[edit] References
- ^ Daphne Golan, 'Between Universalism and Particularism: the "Border" in Israeli Discourse,' in V. Y. Mudimbe (ed.)Nations, identities, cultures, Duke University Press, 1997 pp.75-94, p.87.
- ^ Daphne Golan, 1997, p.89
- ^ [(French)http://www.lalsace.fr/actualite/2011/04/25/nous-avions-de-bonnes-raisons-de-revoir-michel-warschawski-en-janvier-dernier-a-paris Michel Warschawski, un pacifiste venu d’Alsace en Terre Sainte, l'Alsace, 25 april 2011 ]
- ^ Alternative Information Center (AIC) Profile, NGO Monitor, June 04, 2009
[edit] Bibliography
- Toward an Open Tomb: The Crisis of Israeli Society (New York, 2004) ISBN 978-1583671092
- On the Border (London, 2005) ISBN 978-0745323251
- The 33 Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (with Gilbert Achcar) (London, 2007) ISBN 978-0863566462
