Fiesta of St Fermin
July 27, 2001-09-06
A couple of weeks ago, while travelling in Northern
Spain, I came upon the old capital of Navarre. Pamplona
celebrated the feria of St Fermin, and thousands of
aficionados crowded the narrow streets leading to the
famed bullring. There were also a lot of foreigners
earnestly following Hemingway's steps. In the morning,
young boys run the arena with the young bulls, competing
in speed and grace. It was an exciting show, awash with
adrenaline, but it draws no blood. It was different in
the evening hours, when grown men fought mature bulls,
ferocious coal-black creatures with sharp horns, moving
at the speed of a TGV train, weighing over half a ton
each, every ounce loaded with the resolve of a
bullterrier.
The tribunes above the arena are divided into two
sections with different population. In the Sombra
section, the upper class sombrely applauds the show.
They are the important people, and a matador tries his
best to show them his art. In the Sol, under the direct
rays of a Pyrenean sun, the simple folk made merry by
splashing buckets of Sangria, sharing home cooked food
with strangers and singing the chant of St Fermin. They
love bullfight too, but there is not much action on
their side of the ring.
The matador works unbelievably close to the beast, just
slightly shifting the weight to avoid the deadly horn.
If not for the animal's lack of understanding, a man
would have a slim chance of surviving a confrontation
with the bull. But the bull is fascinated with the red
cloth, the muleta, that the matador unveils in front of
him. Instead of going for the matador, he flies at the
cloth. In the end, tired of his labours lost, frustrated
by vain assaults on the unvanquished red cloth, the bull
stood still, lowered his neck and waited for the
merciful steel.
The bullfight is an apt metaphor for the fruitless fight
for civil rights in Palestine. The Jewish settlements in
the midst of Palestinian population are like the red
cloth. The settlements annoy us, as they ruin the
Biblical beauty of the Highlands. They annoy us by their
visible injustice, as they are open only to Jews, while
a goy can not even enter their limits. They annoy us,
because they are the reason for separate for-Jews-only
roads. They annoy us, because of the provocative
demeanour of the settlers, who do their worst to
humiliate their non-Jewish neighbours. They annoy us
because they supplant olives with ugly prefabs. So we
charge at them, while the matador moves away, and the
important people above applaud.
For once, let us direct the rage of the bull away from
the distracting and annoying muleta. The constant focus
on the settlements is a distraction. On any given day,
even in Jewish newspapers, in Haaretz or the New York
Times, you can publish a critique of the illegal
settlements provided you stop there. But there is a man
behind the red cloth. And there are those who sent him
to fight the bull. The matador is the state of Israel.
No settlement would exist even a day, without the
Israeli war machine behind it. When the native
inhabitants of Hebron are locked for months in their
homes, the curfew is imposed by the Israeli army, not by
the four hundred Jewish settlers. But there is a man in
the Sombra who commands the matador. Israel would not be
able to commit its atrocities without support from
abroad.
Maxim Rodinson, a noted French Marxist and biographer of
the Prophet, defined Israel as "a settler state", a
colony. But every settler state has its mother country,
the source of external power. French Algeria was manned
and supported by France. The US was a settler state,
whose mother country was England. What is the external
power supporting Israel? What is its mother country? It
is not the US, it is the constellation of important
Jewish communities and first and foremost, the American
Jewish community.
They send money and they organize public support and
they influence the policies of the state of Israel. They
are visibly more hawkish even than Sharon's Likud. The
late unlamented "Rabbi" Kahane was probably nearest to
the hearts of Israel's supporters in America. This
phenomenon of overseas Jews posing 'as more Israeli than
Israelis', well described by Uri Avneri, has a variety
of reasons. But I will limit myself to addressing just
one of the causes. They get no flak from their
operations. They sit in shadow and send the matador to
fight.
The men who send the Israeli troops to enforce the siege
of Hebron and other Palestinian communities, live at
ease in New York or Los Angeles, watch TV and put
pressure on their congressmen to support the slaughter.
These folks, inciting to war crimes against the
Palestinians, have no worries at all. Perhaps it is time
to direct some heat their way.
Wars can never end, so long as their chief perpetrators
sit in peace. Michael L. Calderon reminded us this week:
"The French, Americans, and Afrikaner South Africans did
not abandon their exploits in Algeria, Indochina,
Namibia and Angola because of a collective "change of
heart". Indeed these victories were won on two fronts.
One was the front of actual warfare, and peoples of
Algeria, Vietnam, Angola and Cuba bore the brunt of it.
The second front was the international pressure and
domestic protests.
The second front of the war for Palestine should be
opened now, and we should know whom to apply pressure to
and against whom to protest. In my opinion, the buck
stops at the door of self-appointed heads of the
organized Jewish communities, Bronfman, Foxman,
Sulzberger et al. They are nasty and powerful men, and I
understand the desire of the friends of Palestine to
look for a less formidable adversary, like Hebron
settlers. Alas, it is as unprofitable as looking for a
lost coin under the lamp post, just because it is where
the light shines. One must look for the coin where one
dropped it, even if it is inconvenient.
Confronting the individual leaders of the American
Jewish community has become an urgent necessity. Why it
was not done until now? There is still the irresistible
tendency to exonerate them from the blame for the
tragedy of the Palestinians, while explaining all by
"American imperialist policies". Even a great friend of
Palestine, Noam Chomsky, whom I admire this side of idol
worship, subscribes to this view. In a recent public
appearance in MIT, he said that the pro-Israeli policies
of the US are not caused by the influence of the Jewish
lobby, but by the interest of American elites. Amicus
Plato, magis amica veritas. I have to disagree.
His opinion was repeated by many good people, all of
them sincere supporters of the Palestinians. Usually
they quote the Fateful Triangle, a classic work by Noam
Chomsky, or express it in a similar way, as did good Dr.
Gabor Mate. He wrote to me: "While they, Bronfmans and
their colleagues certainly do their share to mislead and
confuse the public - Jewish and non-Jewish - even they
are small beer (metaphor intended) compared with the
real interests U.S. policy serves. It's a question of
the strategic interest of the U.S. corporate-state in
having an obedient pit bull in the Middle East, with a
nuclear capability, sufficiently nervous and aggressive
to jump at Arab throats on demand, should the need arise
- but also sufficiently dependent so that the leash can
be pulled short whenever necessary. As one U.S. State
Department official said some years ago, in Israel we
have an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East."
If you look carefully at these arguments, they collapse
like a house of cards. American planes do not land on
this "aircraft carrier" even in case of war "they have
bases elsewhere, in Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc. Cyprus was
called once "the unsinkable aircraft carrier", but it
was dropped with great ease. The obedience of this pit
bull is not much to speak about, as supply of weapons to
China proved, and as for Israel being a dependable ally,
there are strong doubts. Actually, there are Israeli
leaders speaking of a different alliance, namely with
Russia and its immensely rich and powerful Russian
Jewish community, as America pulls the leash too much,
in their opinion.
Some people explain the US policies by "oil interests".
As it happens, there is no oil in Palestine, not much in
the neighbouring lands. I can not envisage Israeli
intervention in Saudi Arabia or Iran for the same of
American oil supplies - it would explode the entire
Middle East.
The idea of Israel as a "local proxy", or a "local cop
on the beat" also holds no water. I do not know of a
single American corporate interest that would not be
better off by allying with Turkey instead of Israel, for
instance. As a Palestinian analyst wrote, "Turkey would
have been a better investment, for example, as a
"normal" regional power that can help US policy, without
costing half as much. Being Muslim may help as well in
having a legitimate claim to "ruling over" the weak Arab
countries'. One can add that Turkey was the traditional
ruler of the area up to 1917, and it has biggest and
strongest army, totally pro-American and pro-Western. In
other words, the concept of Israel as a servile dupe of
American imperialism is a non-starter.
Edward Herman, who co-authored 'Manufacturing Consent'
with Chomsky, agrees with this assessment. "The Jewish
lobby here is extremely important,.. I did have a piece
on them directly, and it drew some criticism from
several people on the left who argued that the lobby was
much less important than US strategic interests in the
Middle East. I've always felt that the lobby was at
least of equal importance; fortunately for the lobby,
the two have been at least reconcilable."
The means of confronting the self-proclaimed Jewish
leadership could be direct, creative and certainly
non-violent. A good example was set by Berkeley
students, the bearers of the tradition of 1968. They
built two gates to the campus, one for Jews, another one
for non-Jews, in order to give Americans a taste of
Israeli "roads for Jews only". I can envisage heaps of
earth on the driveway of Mr Bronfman or Mr Foxman. As
good Jews, they certainly observe the rule of Hillel the
Elder and do not do unto others whatever they hate
themselves. As they support blocking Palestinian
driveways, they would probably enjoy the same treatment.
By the same rule, as they support illegal settlements,
they no doubt would be pleased if some good people would
squat on their private estates.
I think such sit-ins would be fun, and they will attract
many good Americans of Jewish ancestry. After all, their
fathers protested White supremacy in the South, now the
sons can protest Jewish supremacy in Palestine, without
having to travel out of town. Instead of boring
demonstration in front of a boring Federal office
building, instead of dangerous show off with Israeli
soldiers on the hills of al-Khadr, the Not In My Name
people, Rabbis for Human Rights etc can lead the
struggle against the real adversary, back in the good
old United States of America. They should do it together
with other American activists, including Palestinian
exiles.
This experiment will answer the question of the Jewish
lobby's influence in the US and on the events in
Palestine. I believe that it will have a great effect,
if there would be real pressure on Mr Bronfman and his
super-rich friends in the Sombra to end their
anti-Palestinian belligerence. Maybe they will signal
the matador to send the bull back to his cows, instead
of carver's desk.
This confrontation would also help ordinary Americans of
Jewish origin to fight their self-proclaimed leadership.
Why should they take on these 'leaders' ? Well, for one
reason, because Bronfman and his cronies pocketed
billions of dollars squeezed from Swiss banks, instead
of giving the money to the holocaust survivors. But that
will be the subject of my next article.