An antisemitism that changes its face
We must stop telling ourselves stories, because antisemitism is no longer an old far-right demon exhibited as a moral trophy.
It has changed its face, dressed itself up as anti-Zionism, repainted itself in the colors of militant virtue, and established itself in the public debate. With the blessing of a section of the far left, delighted to find in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict an ideological outlet for its own dead ends.
An obsession with heavy consequences
For years, a radical fringe has made Israel its favorite punching bag. An obsession, in the clinical sense of the term. Criticizing a government is normal. But transforming this criticism into a quasi-religious ritual is something else.
Especially when this fervor is accompanied by an inability to condemn Islamist terrorism or to express outrage at slogans calling for the disappearance of the State of Israel. At this stage, it is no longer politics, it is a drift.
And the consequences are there. Antisemitic acts are exploding, insults are multiplying, synagogues are being vandalized, social media networks are becoming hunting grounds. No, the far left is not responsible for everything. But it contributes to establishing a climate where hostility towards Jews becomes background noise, a banality. And Jewish French people experience this every day.
The moral test of October 7
October 7, 2023 should have served as a moral test. A terrorist organization massacres civilians, kidnaps entire families. One could have hoped for a clear, straightforward condemnation. Failed.
Part of the radical left preferred to pull out its old software: minimizing, relativizing, looking away, shifting the blame onto Israel.
Criticisms of the conduct of the war then transform, among some activists, into indistinct hostility. The Israeli government is no longer the target because it is the Jews, by slippage, by confusion, by intellectual laziness.
A political suicide
Politically, it is an assisted suicide. By transforming the Near East into an identity marker, the far left fractures the left, isolates itself, and cuts itself off from the rest of the republican forces.
Diplomatic disagreements are normal. Ambiguity in the face of antisemitism is never. Democracies do not survive long when they allow radicalization discourse to replace rational debate.
Pitting communities against each other, importing foreign conflicts, designating scapegoats, relativizing terrorism, these are the fuels of extremism, not the tools of the Republic.
For a line of clarity
France does not need activists in a trance. It needs a condemnation of antisemitism, without rhetorical acrobatics, the refusal to import foreign conflicts, the defense of the rule of law and the protection of all citizens, without a hierarchy of suffering.
The fight against antisemitism is not a buffet where you choose what suits you. It loses all credibility as soon as it becomes a partisan instrument.
Firmness must be the same in the face of the far right, radical Islamism, and all the complacency which, under the guise of anti-Zionism, ends up legitimizing hatred of Jews.
It is on this line of clarity that an essential part of national cohesion is played out. This is where political leaders will be judged.
Bernard BERTUCCO VAN DAMME