The late Shimon Tzabar obituary

A regular commentor called Montag has reminded me of the passing of Shimon Tzabar. He was already the late Shimon Tzabar back in March this year so its my post on his obituary that's late. I wasn't blogging much when the man died and by the time I was there was too much to catch up on so I didn't even try. Daphna Baram's obituary in the Independent is a fascinating biography of a man who was in on the founding of the State of Israel as an armed zionist only to become disillusioned with the project later on in life. 3 months after the June 1967 war he and 11 others published the following statement in Ha'aretz:

Foreign rule leads to resistance. Resistance leads to oppression. Oppression leads to terror and counter-terror. . . keeping the territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims.

I only heard of this chap a few years ago when he had a run-in with Michelin, the tyre and restaurant awards company, because he published a booklet satirising their good restaurant guide with a replica detailing Israel's "prisons, concentration camps and torture chambers" together with details on "how to get there." Michelin's case was ludicrous and must have been politically motivated. The BBC report of it at the time is here. The outcome was that no further copies of the booklet were produced and so the multi-national giant, Michelin, won a great case against an elderly man in poor health who was no threat to them commercially, though apparently a terrible threat politically. I've hunted around a bit but I could only find the cover on the net and that's everywhere. Surely someone has it and thinks a run in with Michelin is worth the trouble. So go on, if you have it on line or in hard copy, let me know.

Thanks