Sasha Baron Cohen has done it again. In his summer comedy, “Bruno,” Cohen plays a gay Austrian journalist who moves to the United States to become famous. While some critics have praised “Bruno” for exposing or lampooning homophobia, the film’s overall effect—as a ridiculous and offensive medley of thrown-together stereotypes—is likely to reinforce rather than challenge anti-gay bigotry.
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Cohen also scores a few cheap thrills (and bucks) utilizing anti-Arab racism. In the film, Bruno figures he needs to get involved with a charity in order to get attention as an aspiring celebrity. He ventures to “middle earth,” as the camera zooms into a map of the Middle East, to attempt to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There, he interviews Ayman Abu Aita, the so-called “leader of the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades,” and “local terrorist.” He then asks Abu Aita a question suggesting Osama Bin Laden is his “king”—prompting Abu Aita to end the interview.
In an out-of-character interview with David Letterman, Cohen explained the process of finding and the dangers of interviewing the Palestinian “terrorist” in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in South Lebanon. Cohen asserted that Abu Aita was the leader of a “nasty group, the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades the kind of number one suicide bombers out there.” He also claimed that he met Abu Aita in a secret location in which both parties had bodyguards.
All of the information shared by Cohen is a complete lie. Ayman Abu Aita is a well-known, respected activist in the West Bank who works with a non-profit organization and is affiliated with the ruling party Fatah. He is easy to find, travels freely and now plans to sue Cohen for defamation. Abu Aita asserts that the interview was held in Bethlehem, in a hotel popular among tourists. He also said that there were no bodyguards, just Cohen, himself, a Palestinian journalist and a small camera crew.
Who are the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades?
That Abu Aita is not a member of the al-Aqsa Brigades is just the beginning of Cohen’s distortions problem. In Palestine, every major political party has a corresponding military wing. Because the nation has been forged under conditions of violent occupation, no political party can be relevant without participating in the anti-colonial resistance. Al-Aqsa is the military wing of Fatah and has long been a major force in the Palestinian liberation struggle, fighting, for instance, against the 2002 Israeli invasion of the Jenin refugee camp.
All modern states maintain armed bodies for the purpose of both domestic policing and national security, but the Palestinians have long been denied the right to formal statehood. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent acceptance of a Palestinian “state” came with the important condition that it be demilitarized (and thus not a “state” at all).
The Palestinian political-military organizations play a dual role: fighting the Israeli occupation as a basic tenet of self-determination and self-defense and functioning as the state apparatus long denied to the Palestinian people. Even now that Fatah’s current leader and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has steered the party into an alliance with Israel and the United States, the al-Aqsa brigades still exist as a resistance force.
To label these legitimate movements as “terrorist” is a shameful and racist distortion. Some reviewers have claimed “Bruno” makes fun of both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when in fact it is actually grossly one-sided. After all, Cohen made no mention of Israeli state terrorism in the film or in subsequent interviews.
No form of “comedy” is an excuse for perpetuating bigotry. The Party for Socialism and Liberation supports the right of the Palestinian people to resist colonial occupation by any means necessary and extends its solidarity to Ayman Abu Aita in his lawsuit against Cohen.
