There is no doubt that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been imported into the West and weighs heavily in many areas, notably by increasing anti-Semitism. The question I ask myself is that of the apparent coincidence between this importation and the sudden decline of democracy and the rise of authoritarian regimes. One cannot help but be struck by the importance given to this conflict in Trump’s US, Orban’s Hungary, Milei’s Argentina, etc. Closer to home, France, Germany, and even more so the mother of democracies (England) are affected by this scourge, where anyone who holds a Palestinian flag or defends Palestine is imprisoned—more than 4,000 people, including blind people (see this video of a blind man and an elderly woman in a wheelchair holding a Free Palestine flag being led to the van). Fortunately, some countries are more respectful of democracy, such as Spain, Ireland, and Belgium. Why is it so serious to want to defend a massacred people?
In this magnificent book by Lebanese writer Dominique Eddé (Death is Changing Its Face, unfortunately not translated to English to the best of my knowledge), which I recommend everyone to read, this subject is addressed brilliantly, and I cannot resist quoting a few sentences ” The ban on naming the genocide taking place in Gaza, under penalty of being labeled anti-Semitic, is a lock that has held for months, months that nevertheless continued to provide proof; that lock has just been broken. It is no longer just a few clear-minded Israeli dissidents who are saying this, but NGOs, the UN, officials, former ministers, and ambassadors!“ In order to avoid squabbling over a word that seems to offend right-thinking people and almost all the media, Dominique Eddé suggests replacing genocide with ”slaughterhouse” in order to get to the heart of the problem.
She adds further on, “It is not only the lives of Gaza that are being cut short, it is the very meaning of life that is at stake. The power to exterminate human beings with such cruelty, such precision, such indifference to the unanimous reports of witnesses, Palestinian healthcare workers and journalists killed as a priority, is an announcement to the whole world that the survival of some can now be achieved through the death of others. It is the height of depravity to plan the starvation of a population by starting with depriving newborns of milk”… And further on: “Why is it so difficult to criticize Hamas’ choices when we are clear and uncompromising towards Netanyahu’s abominable regime?
It remains difficult indeed to understand why criticizing a country (Israel) amounts to criticizing a religion! When we criticize, say, Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen or China for its treatment of the Uighurs, we are not criticizing the Muslim religion or Chinese communism. So is there “preferential treatment” for Judaism? This is also the source of a vicious circle: the slaughterhouse over there increases anti-Semitism here and the departure of Jews from France, which further reinforces Israel’s destructive power. It is this vicious circle that must be fought by criticizing Israel’s claim to be the country of the Jews. As Ilan Pappé, an Israeli academic and expert on Palestinian history who was ostracized and dismissed from the university, says, “Jews have made a much greater contribution to the world as a stateless people than as a people with a state.”
To quote Dominique Eddé again, “death has liquefied, it has contaminated language, it has entered the language. Language has suffered war in the same way as a territory. This wave of nonsense knows no borders, it is on the verge of taking over the planet. The image that haunts me is that of a bloodied face, disfigured by pain, of a dying little girl in Gaza begging her father to tell her if what she is experiencing is reality or a nightmare.” Unbearable images are legion because, despite the complete blockade of Gaza, cell phones still work (see my blogs and LinkedIn links). And this in no way defends Hamas, condemned for 7/10 but even more so for what it is in essence; we can and must criticize both sides while remembering that the massacres of Palestinians are 80 years old—since the Naqba. The author also strongly criticizes Arab civil societies which, “under the pretext of the ongoing carnage in Gaza, renounce self-criticism, exonerate Hamas, relativize the treatment of Israeli hostages, and give in to the sinister argument of numbers and comparison—it’s nothing compared to the ongoing genocide.” In this situation, “the defeat is twofold: it is physical, inflicted by the enemy’s military force, and moral, inflicted by oneself.” Why does this slaughterhouse concern us so much?
First of all, it should be noted that the ban on defending Palestine is accompanied in these countries by the same, often successful, attempt to destroy the essential elements of democracy. In the US, a Trump—as in Israel, a Netanyahu—corrupt to the core, is attacking the entire legal system in order to replace it with more docile judges and defend corrupt regimes and dictators everywhere, buying or threatening those who stand in his way. With Netanyahu in Israel, it is becoming difficult to still speak of a democracy. This recipe is also used by Orban, Milei, and other dictators who muzzle the media, favoring the private over the public. Similar attempts are underway in Melonie’s Italy and, to a lesser extent, in France.
I would argue that the Gordian knot in this situation is the pro-Semitism label that has been given to the far right (in the US, the Evangelists have adopted a strongly pro-Israël and jews attitude). Overnight, the history of these parties has been erased, as in France with the demonstrations against anti-Semitism welcoming the National front with open arms—but not representatives of the Muslim community, which would have been more intelligent. It is important to emphasize how much this endorsement will weigh on our democracies. Indeed, as a result, the line between the right and the extreme right is becoming blurred, and Farage, Le Pen, Bardella, and others are moving closer to power, or even already hold it and are spreading it, as in the US and elsewhere. It is no coincidence that the right, and even more so the parties between the right and the far right, are the strongest advocates of a hard line against pro-Palestinians, behaving like true converts. This paradigm shift also comes at a time when GAFAM and billionaires in general want even more power and refuse to share any of it. This is a full-scale attack on society, which will remain the greatest achievement of this savage capitalism. Everything is connected, and the excuse of defending the Jews (unsuccessfully, incidentally) allows for all kinds of excesses.
The opening of this Pandora’s box opens the door to the destruction of our democracies. Eighty years after the 2nd wold war which like that of 1914-1918, was supposed to be the last, we are already being prepared for the next one, based on the fact that three-quarters of a generation has passed and that is how long it takes to forget.
Photo Kenny Eliason – Unsplash
