Associated Press is reporting that Abie Nathan, the Iranian born Israeli peace activist has died in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital. In a 1996 interview with The Associated Press, Nathan said that during one of his prison hunger strikes, he was certain he was going to die. He bought a grave and a tombstone. When asked what he would want written on the stone, he replied “Nissiti,” the Hebrew word for “I tried.”
…Abraham Jacob Nathan was born April 29, 1927 in Iran, educated in India, and served in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot, before joining the Jewish immigrant influx into newborn Israel in 1948…
After two more fruitless flights on commercial airlines, Nathan changed his tactics, buying a 188-foot, 570-ton freighter that was partially funded by John Lennon. He anchored it off the coast of Tel Aviv and turned it into a pirate radio station, “The Voice of Peace,” with a mix of pop songs and peace messages.
“Shalom, salaam and peace to all our listeners,” Nathan declared in his maiden broadcast in 1973. “The Peace Ship is a project of the people. We hope through this station we will help relieve the pain and heal the wounds of many years of suffering of the people of the Middle East.”
Over the next 20 years, “The Voice of Peace” became especially popular among youth. It was the only radio station in the Middle East that broadcast music from the world’s “Top 40″ charts and used English as its primary language, yet offered both Israeli and Arabic news.
Apart from his peace efforts, Nathan flew or shipped emergency supplies to victims of war, earthquakes and famine around the world, including to Biafra, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Lebanon and the former Zaire.