On Saturday, October 7th, we woke up to the shock of the Hamas attack, to terrifying witness accounts, to fear for our loved ones over there for some of us, and, for all of us, to the fear for Jews here. A part of the political, trade-unionist, decolonialist, and anti-racist Left chose to share their support for the antisemitic killers, sometimes repeating Hamas’ declarations word for word.
We are furious against those who celebrate here the blood shed by Hamas over there. Furious to observe the results of decades of dehumanizing of Israeli lives. We are appalled to observe how little they care about Palestinian lives, as these Hamas supporters don’t seem to understand the consequences already underway for the situation in the Middle East. The current reports are for more than 1200 deaths and 2,700 wounded in Israel during these attacks, the vast majority of whom were and are unarmed civilians.
We remind them that nothing can justify the deliberate execution of civilians, whether Israeli or Palestinian.
Nothing. We cannot “support the means of struggle that the Palestinians have chosen to resist” (translated from the NPA’s [New Anticapitalist Party] press release of Oct 7) when those means are mass murders of civilians, kidnappings, and slaughtering of men, women, children, and the elderly. Even less so when these murders are staged and broadcast, as livestreamed beheadings, displayed corpses, desacralized and humiliated lifeless bodies. This is the macabre result of an indiscriminate operation against Jews and anyone in their path, targeting no strategic, military, or economic target. Among the victims, we deplore young people participating in a rave party, peace activists, Anarchists Against the Wall militants, Thai workers, and many others.
The reactions of support for Hamas sound like a despicable justification of the antisemitic war crimes perpetrated on victims whose civilian nature is denied both by Hamas and by its relays among Western Leftists. This denial of the civilian nature of the victims is the backbone of the ideological and political platform of the Hamas, which considers all Israeli Jews as settlers and therefore legitimate targets.
This pernicious equation of Jews with Israelis and settlers makes every murder and kidnapping acceptable. Sheikh Yassin, Hamas’ founder, said: “Every Jew is a target and can be killed.” The exterminating logic carried out by Hamas has a single objective: the eviction of Israelis. Hamas’ message is clear: « go home ». But where is “home”? It is abundantly clear that no one will leave this part of the Middle East, even when it is burning: Israelis and Palestinians have nowhere else to go.
This violence, which some of the political Left justifies, has consequences for all Jews in the diaspora.
Since the 2nd Intifada in 2000, every episode of tension in the Middle East has been imported back here, in Europe, as a flood of antisemitic acts. Some are heartbreakingly parting with their religious symbols: their kippah (yarmulke or skullcap), Star of David around their neck, or mezzuzah on their home entrances. Dozens of antisemitic acts have already been recorded since this weekend, while social media have become nauseating as posts glorifying the slaughterings have been garnering hundreds of thousands of likes. Any consistent anti-racist should be alarmed and stand by Jewish communities.
We can and must stand against the policies of the Israeli government and its crimes against Palestinians, without condoning the war crimes of the Hamas. We can denounce the invisibilization of the Palestinian suffering without ignoring and denying that of Israeli civilian victims. It is possible. It is the only way the Left can stay true to itself. In this regard, we welcome the strong stance taken by ‘LFI’ MP Rodrigo Arenas. All those who glorify Hamas, while writing off their profoundly antisemitic charter [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter] and without acknowledging their criminal methods (including towards the Palestinian population they control), are hand-waving to appear pseudo-radical rather than actually acting for a world free from oppression.
Finally, let us remind ourselves that international laws such as the Geneva Convention are not bourgeois whims but major social advances. Their objective is to protect those who need it the most in times of war: civilians and prisoners, and it is absolutely not desirable to abstract from them. Supporting Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Hezbollah — all funded by Iran’s extremist and profoundly antisemitic regime — is not a heroic show of support for the suffering Palestinians, but rather sends an ominous message to every Jewish person telling them that they and their close or distant peers, whose only crime is to breathe, do not deserve to continue doing so.
Most of those who live in Israel are or descend from refugees. Zionist or not, it is the fundamental need to live somewhere that drove them there.
Refugees from WWII’s Holocaust when most countries closed their borders on them. Refugees rendered stateless after the 1948 independence war, expelled from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, … Therefore, calling all Israelis settlers to justify their murders is a dangerous simplification of the history of antisemitism, of the millennial persecution of Jews and its consequences. Today, most Israelis are sabra, born in Israel. It is their country and they have no other.
Yes, Israel’s creation was also the product of colonialistic practices which led to the Nakba for Palestinians. Yes, it is also characterized by the colonization and brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza’s blockade, even more now under today’s far-right government. But this cannot justify the dehumanization of the Israeli population. Acknowledging the responsibility of antisemitism in today’s situation, wherever it is coming from, requires us to part with simplistic explanations. Acknowledging all of these realities, all of these wounds that compound and don’t compensate for each other is the only path to justice. Dehumanizing Israelis is no more acceptable than dehumanizing Palestinians. Behind the deaths are families and loved ones who mourn every day. And behind each catchy slogan, there is an incredible violence that can only be understood through listening and humility.
Traumas do not cancel each other out, they only accumulate.
While current events are traumatizing for many people, including Jewish minorities, it is necessary to stay empathetic and supportive toward the suffering of the Palestinian people, who have been the victims of the occupation, colonization, and wars for multiple decades. Traumas do not cancel each other out, they only accumulate. Celebrating or justifying the ongoing massacre in Gaza is not acceptable and will never be. Today’s reports are of 687 deaths and 3,727 wounded there.
Israeli bombings are indictinctively leveling Gaza. Let’s not be blind, there are piles of Palestinian corpses underneath all the rubble. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed in recent years, among them many children and civilians, who did not deserve to die either, but rather to live free and in peace, far from war, from Israeli tanks and Hamas’ murderers. Too often, their deaths have been met with silence and indifference in Europe. Today, 2 million Palestinians live in unacceptable conditions in a territory, Gaza, which is no more than an open-air prison. We cannot accept their dehumanization either. The militaristic approach and the maintenance of the colonial status quo is not a solution but rather a nightmarish vision that can only lead to an even more disastrous situation.
Many of the victims’ loved ones are mourning as events unfold: Jewish loved ones, Palestinian loved ones, and Israeli loved ones. There is nothing in their grief to be celebrated. A murderous logic is sweeping through the political spectrum: one that consider deaths as a necessary evil. A true left-wing project is to focus on de-escalation and the right to equality for all who inhabit this land. On the other side, the fascist far right is hoping for a war of civilizations and celebrates the ongoing massacres. Our commitment to our Jewish identity along with our Leftist principles compel us to celebrate life.
This Shabbat during the Kiddush, and on other occasions, we will repeat the Jewish toast L’Haim (to life). Through our emotions and reactions, however sincere and painful they may be, we must distance ourselves from this nihilistic fantasy of the clash of civilizations. Let us not confuse the desire for life expressed by those who, in Israel as in Palestine, fight for peace, justice, and democracy, with the desire for death embodied by Hamas and the Israeli extreme right.
“Juives et Juifs Révolutionnaires” (Revolutionary Jews)
October 10, 2023