Bravo,
Amigos!
By Uri Avnery
22 March, 2004
Gush Shalom
A Prime Minister is waging war. The great
majority of the people oppose the war. The majority vote for the Prime
Minister.
Absurd? Well, that
was the situation in Spain. It also applies, more or less, in Israel.
But here the similarity ends.
The Spanish people
have thrown their Prime Minister out. The Israeli people go on supporting
their Prime Minister.
The Spaniards, in
their innocence, believe that if a Prime Minister does the opposite
of what the great majority of the people want, he has to go. They think
that this is what democracy is all about. In Israel, such a thing is
unthinkable.
And that is not
the only difference.
Of course, the Spanish
people arrived at this conclusion under the influence of the big terrorist
attack in Madrid. The Spanish reaction was very different from the usual
Israeli one.
After the terrorist
onslaught, the Spanish asked themselves: why did they do it? What caused
this murderous attack on us? The logical answer was: the Prime Minister's
policy has brought this on us. The conclusion: Let's find another one.
In Israel, such
a question cannot arise. What brought the terrorist attacks on us? What
sort of a question is that? The reason for terrorism is the inborn murderous
character of the Arabs. It has, of course, nothing at all to do with
the policy of our Prime Minister.
When a terrorist
outrage happens here, logic flies out of the window. Instead of thinking
and asking questions, people shout "Death to the Arabs", demand
bloody revenge and gather around the Prime Minister.
Another difference:
the Spaniards got angry. The Prime Minister lied to them. He exploited
the outrage for his election campaign. When he already knew that all
the signs pointed to Islamic fanatics, he pretended in public that the
attack was perpetrated by the Basque ETA organization. He hoped to garner
the votes of those Spaniards who oppose an independent Basque homeland.
But the voters understood that this was a lie and did not like it. The
Prime Minister is lying to us? To hell with him.
In Israel, when
the Prime Minister lies, the public remains apathetic. The Prime Minister
has lied to us again? So what? Isn't he always lying? Nothing to get
upset about.
One can only envy
the Spanish. After a horrible civil war, after decades of an oppressive
dictatorship, in spite of domestic splits and many terrorist attacks,
what a healthy reaction! What strong democratic instincts!
(By the way: some
500 years ago, half a million Jews were expelled from Spain. In the
last decades, almost all the "Sephardim" - Sepharad is the
Hebrew name for Spain ? came to Israel. The great majority of them support
Ariel Sharon. Why do the "Spanish" Jews in Israel react differently
from the Spanish people back home?)
There is another
difference between Spain and Israel, and it may be the decisive one.
Last year I visited
Spain. Some days before I arrived, the Prime Minister's party had won
an impressive victory in the local elections. The opposition Socialist
Party was lying flat out. Everybody spoke of it with contempt, some
with pain. The party was in ruins, perhaps beyond redemption.
And then it happened:
the party replaced its old leaders with an energetic, fresh one, Jose
Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. With a lot of luck, this man has now led his
party power.
When the Spanish
people were fed up with their Prime Minister, they knew that there was
a reasonable alternative. They could throw the ruling party out because
there was another party ready to move in.
In Israel, these
conditions do not apply. Our leading opposition party, Labor, is also
a shambles, but there is no sign of recovery. Quite the contrary.
It is headed by
a pathetic person who would make a deal with the devil for a place in
Sharon's government. Its other old leaders, all of them certified failures,
are already quarrelling about the chairs that Sharon may allot them,
should he be so kind as to invite them into his cabinet.
The Israeli situation
is surreal: according to all opinion polls, a large part of the public
is fed up with the war, the bloody cycle of suicide bombings and targeted
assassinations, the settlements and the settlers. They want a solution
and are ready to pay the necessary price ? the end of the occupation,
a Palestinian state, the dismantling of the settlements, a reasonable
compromise about Jerusalem, withdrawal to the vicinity of the Green
Line. They want to shift our national resources from occupation and
war to economic growth, education and social welfare.
So how does this
translate into political realities? It doesn't. There is no serious
political force able to offer an alternative leadership.
In Spain that was
a temporary situation, which corrected itself in a natural way. In Israel,
this situation seems to be permanent.
Therefore, one can
not only envy the Spanish, but also learn from them. The political ball
is round. It can turn suddenly. What seems to be impossible can become
possible ? if there are good people around, who can convert good intentions
into political reality.
I hope that this
will happen here, too. True, some people are already standing in line
? Tony Blair and George W. Bush. What has happened to Jose Maria Aznar
in Spain must happen to them, and I hope that it will. Then, with a
lot of courage and a lot of luck, the turn of the fourth in the queue
will come, and Ariel Sharon, another man of blood and lies, will be
turned out.
In the meantime
we salute our friends at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea ? Bravo,
amigos!