There is a gap in awareness between the massacres that took place in full view on October 7th and how they are perceived by Western public opinion. No lawyer or genocide historian can rule out the classification of the massacres carried out by Hamas in southern Israel as crimes against humanity. The Yad Vashem Institute, the world’s largest Holocaust research center, wrote: “Hamas’ massacre of Jews on October 7 was genocidal in its intent and immeasurably violent in its form.” »
Unfortunately, it is not just a formula: the cruelty of the acts committed and planned on a large scale has never been witnessed before: babies were beheaded, corpses dismembered and desecrated, entire families were tortured and raped before being murdered. It was the worst hostage-taking ever carried out in terms of scale and duration; Hostage-taking, mainly involving entire families, including vulnerable people, young children or infants, including several French nationals.
Of course, mistreatment, crimes and rape are the result of theaters of war. In terms of the Hamas attack, they were the only target. Unlike the “Final Solution,” which was designed with the greatest care to remain secret from the victims and perpetrators, here everything was done to carry out the worst pogrom in history, and it was done with a GoPro. Facts are facts. And nothing will have been done to hide them.
But what have we seen, apart from the statements from Western law firms, which were also heavily criticized? In Paris, where anti-Semitic attacks are taking place, in Barcelona, where people are gathering in front of a hotel that supposedly belongs to an Israeli to invade it, and in Dagestan, where a gigantic hunt for Jews has begun at an airport – on the tarmac of a plane to lynch passengers from Tel Aviv: We will never have attacked as many Jews, wherever they are, as since we massacred 1,400 in Israel.
How to admit the ubiquitous equivalences?
Despite this dramatic situation, the families of the Hamas hostages have irrational confidence in France’s possible measures to bring their children home. How can we convey to these French people in Israel, these Israelis who love our country, the malaise that is gripping our country and is reflected in the public debate? How can we explain to them that most of our enlightened consciences remained silent during the massacre and only described Israel’s military response as a crime? How can we imagine the obsession of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his friends never to use the word “terrorist” against Hamas? Above all, how can we acknowledge the pervasive equations between a criminal organization and Prime Minister Netanyahu, even in the form of humorous columns?
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