Whatever's happened to Charlie Biton? The Moroccan-born leader of the Israeli Black Panther movement has done a political about-turn. In the 1970s he became a Knesset member of the Arab-Jewish Communist party Hadash and met Yasser Arafat in 1987. Now, however, he would make a good Foreign Minister in the next right-wing government, according to Sarah Honig in the Jerusalem Post:
"In the spirit of Purim, I quipped a few days ago that if it were up to me, I'd appoint ex-Black Panther Charlie Biton our new foreign minister.
"It's actually not altogether preposterous. Tzipi Livni eminently proved that proficiency in the English idiom is no prerequisite for the job. Moreover, Charlie says it like it is, passionately, from the gut, without pedantic quibbling, pseudointellectual hairsplitting or any niceties to speak of. He doesn't try to be liked.
"Golda in her day remarked that he and his crowd weren't "nice." Menachem Begin used to refer to him tongue-in-cheek as "Sir Charles."
"But Sir Charles may be just the man of the hour. After all, the international community seems enamored of anyone who smacks of the Third World, and of any cause espoused with indignation and enunciated with aggressive conviction. Nobody can rise to that challenge better than Charlie. European dispensers of sanctimony, indeed, once adored him, hung on his every word and quoted him with undisguised relish.
That was during his 15-year Knesset stint (1977-1992) on the Hadash list, as protege of orthodox communist Meir Wilner. Charlie made Wilner's diatribes sound like decorous moderation. Biton remains outspoken, but his message is different.
Why aren't we aware of his political transformation? "Who'll give me a hearing?" he rhetorically responded to Makor Rishon recently. "Our media serves Israel's enemies... They love interviewing Hamas propagandists, but since I shifted my orientation, I've become taboo. If you're leftist, they'll grant you exposure. Once you switch rightward and try to tell the truth, you're blacklisted."
Be that as it may, Biton admits he "naively once believed that it's possible to arrive at a peaceful solution with the Palestinians - two states for two nations. I gradually got wiser."
No comments:
Post a Comment