Uri Davis: A 'serial thorn in the side of the israeli 'state''

Uri Davis is a "serial thorn in the side of the Israeli state," according to British journalist Jonathan Cook. Justin White of the blog Taming Korach describes him as "Islam's New Tool." He has been called worse. Davis is an Israeli Jew (he prefers the descriptor ‘Hebrew Palestinian') who once headed the PLO London Bureau, and who currently holds a seat on the Fatah Revolutionary Council.

He was born in 1943 in Jerusalem. His mother was a Jew from Czechoslavakia, his father a Jew from the U.K. His father was a supporter of the Martin Buber group, Brit Shalom, which called for "absolute political equality" between Jews and Palestinians.

As an induction-age teenager, Davis was guilty of his first heresy: he refused military service on pacifist grounds. Never having been exposed to the stimulant of patriotism that is part of the Israeli soldier's formation probably made it easier for him to embark in the mid-'80s on his definitive heresy, joining Fatah. (A third heresy occurred only recently. In 2008, in order to marry Palestinian Miyassar Abu Ali, he converted to Islam.)

A longtime academic, Davis was for many years a lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in England, and is currently a professor of sociology at Al Quds University on the West Bank. His many books include Israel: An Apartheid State and Towards A Socialist Republic of Palestine (co-edited with Fouzi el-Asmar and Naim Khader).

In a statement of national self-definition, Davis declared, "I hold Israeli and British passports, but I consider myself Palestinian above all else." More