I never fought with anybody

By Mely Lerman, March 17th, 2010


The day before yesterday I had the opportunity to be on the King David Hotel on a business seminar “Brazil-Israel: Free Trade and New Business Opportunities”.

The main show was, of course, President Lula and I’ll get to it in a second. I just want to refer to a fact that for me was very peculiar: the Israeli press did not cover the event. They wrote about it, and there were again one or two articles about “the Brazilian economic miracle” and they reported that Netanyahu said something about constructions in Jerusalem in his “welcome Lula” speech and that the Israeli foreign minister boycotted the visit.

The Israeli press, like the whole Israeli business community did not understand till today the importance of Brazil in the future of the World economy. For almost a year I tried to start a business bringing software companies from Israel to Brazil. Nobody was interested in investing on marketing themselves in Brazil. Their focus is, till today, the US. They don’t understand the paradigm has changed. Part of it is pure ignorance. Many Israeli businessmen just don’t read newspapers. But mostly it is cognitive dissonance: America has always been the Israeli dream and they are not ready yet to part from it and, on the other side, the image they have of Brazil is of crime, corruption, and carnival in the slums.

They are not ready yet to the future.

No doubt the visit and the agreement between Israel and Mercosur will change a little bit of it but, judging from the press coverage, it will take time.

Now, to the Presidente.

President Lula spoke from written pages but at a certain point he look at us and said: “I’ll leave the protocol!” and put the pages apart. And then Lula (not the president) spoke.

He looked at Peres and said: “I never fought with anybody” (in Potuguese it sounds better: “Nunca briguei com ninguém”)

“In all my life, I never fought with anybody” – he said again. I had disagreements, and many disputes. I have a very difficult party and we had our confrontations but I never fought with anybody.”

“Hugo Morales was elected in Bolivia. We helped him. “- I don’t know if this declaration is compliant with the non intervention diplomatic principle but that is what he said. “We helped him to get elected and what is the first thing he does?” – And then a pause. “He took the Petrobrás from us. We helped him and he took the Petrobrás. A lot of people in Brazil wanted us to go and fight with Bolívia. There were even talks about intervention. But I said no. I remembered my roots. No way will a Brazilian metalúrgico (ironmaster) fight against a Bolivian Indian. I said to my colleagues – it is their gas. I went there and made a pact with the Bolivians”.

“They got their gas and we made business with them”

He drinked a little water and continued: “And then a bishop was elected president in Paraguai. Same thing occurred. Again we went there and signed agreements. Today we are the best friends. Brazilians don’t want to be rich and all the countries around us to be poor. We want that everything will be fine for everybody.”

“When I was elected I went to visit President Bush. It was February 2002. The Iraq war did not start yet but in his mind he was already at war. He talked only about the war. I told him – Mr. President, I have only one war – the war against poverty in my country. I was elected in a platform against the American policy. None in South America can be elected unless he is anti-American. I came from the left. Everybody thought and expected that I will fight America. And you see” - and he looked at Peres and then to all of us –“Bush already finished his career and I am going to finish mine and we did not fight even once”.

“There is no need to fight”, he finished.

Peres looked at him and smiled indicating he understood the message. Did he really?