Uri Avnery on the ‘Clash of Civilisations’

“When I hear mention of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry”, writes Uri Avnery of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom. “To laugh, because it is such a silly notion. To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters. To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this slogan as a pretext for sabotaging any possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation. It is just one more in a long line of pretexts.”

Gush Shalom website, 13 October 2007