including Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP)-and in the tension that revolved around US embassy life (my father was a career Foreign Service Officer working for the US Department of State).¹ I watched as the Embassy began to fortify itself, as ticking packages were treated like bombs only to be revealed as toy clocks mailed by doting grandparents. I remember the first searches at airports. It was the age of the letter bomb. It was the age of hijacking.

It was during this time that my growing political awarenessespecially following close on the worldwide youth movements that peaked in 1968, the shock of the Israeli success in the 1967 war, and the effect of the relatively new Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) particularly under the leadership of Yassir Arafat-as well as my own experience in the Middle East led me to a lifelong interest in the region in general, and to interest and activism specifically with regard to the issue of Palestine and Israel.

Like Uri Avnery, I have a passionate interest in educating the public with regard to an ongoing critical situation and contributing whatever I can to finding a just solution. It is my honor to be able to present this volume of Avnery's monumental contribution to this cause.

The image of the vicious circle is a theme Uri Avnery uses often in his essays on the various relationships between Israel and the rest of the world, particularly Palestine, and it is apt. There are vicious circles of attack, counter-attack and escalation. There are vicious circles of peace process, failure to progress and renewed animosity. There are even vicious physical circles in the sense of the Separation Wall surrounding Palestinian territory or of unwelcoming Arab governments surrounding the state of Israel. However, by spring 2008, it has become clear that the circles have become spirals-downward spirals-and that they are even more vicious. All aspects of the situation themselves spiral viciously through Avnery's writing, forming an intertwined, subtle picture of the whole.

Although I have endeavored to present a full picture, this book is not meant to be a definitive history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is a compilation of (mostly) recent essays by one of the major figures participating in the attempt to break the cycle of violence and counterviolence that has continued throughout virtually the entire existence of Israel. Sometimes an official participant and sometimes an ex-officio contributor, Uri Avnery has performed many roles from his earliest days as a teen activist in the Irgun through his young adulthood as a member of the army to the last few decades as a peace activist. Avnery

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