Having worked for years on the fronts of feminism, anti-racism and the fight against discrimination based on colour, colonisation, gender identity or sexual orientation, we imagined that the freedom and security of Jews of France were self-evident.
Since 7 October, we have witnessed a surge in antisemitism that expresses itself in the acceptance of the idea that Israeli civilians, and more generally Jews, are supposedly legitimate targets of aggression and violence that can go to utter extremes. Instead of the empathy and grief that all moral beings should feel towards the victims – whether Israeli or Gazan – we have seen a kind of aggressive glee emerge, using 7 October as a wake-up call to the world’s Jews through demonstrations, banners, slogans, speeches and forums. We have seen left-wing academics using their feminist credentials to relativise the rapes, torture, murders and sexual mutilations inflicted by Hamas on civilians – many of whom had sided with the Palestinians in the tensions between the Israeli government and the Palestinians. We read that denouncing torture and rape is tantamount, in the eyes of these academics, to participating in racist propaganda.
We, intellectuals involved in feminist and anti-discrimination struggles, wish to express our dismay. We are forced to note the lack of empathy that these speeches betray for the victims of the Hamas massacres. These reactions are all the more difficult to accept because they come from the Left.
The Left cannot abandon the priority of the fight against antisemitism, which is fundamental to its identity. It should not offer this opportunity to be labelled antisemitic by a right that collaborates with the far right, and takes advantage of this to discredit all the struggles against injustice.
Intolerable.
It is appalling to hear voices which, on the pretext of supporting the Palestinian people, deny, excuse or approve the extreme violence of the Hamas attacks. It is intolerable to see people using their “feminism” to justify, directly or indirectly, the specific atrocities committed against Jewish women and girls.
For despite the many traditionally creative and healthy controversies that have developed within feminism, the fact remains that one of its definitions, perhaps the only one shared by all, is the defence of women who are victims of violence, without hesitation, without questioning the reality or the importance of the violence. It is outrageous to abandon and despise other women (and men) out of blind loyalty to a political cause.
It is morally right and entirely normal to denounce the terrible massacre of children and, more generally, of civilians in Gaza, as well as the abuses to which Palestinians are subjected in the West Bank. There is no reason why any Jewish person, wherever they live in the world, should be held responsible simply because they are Jewish. In the same way that the worst reactionaries here demand permanent proof from French Muslims that they have no allegiance to the hate speech or gestures of radical Islamism, French people of Jewish origin are now being asked for permanent proof that they have no moral involvement in what is happening today in Gaza. This suspicion is intolerable for them and for us.
The images of the bodies of the young people murdered at the Nova music festival haunt us. The images of the bodies clearly marked by rape and mutilation are particularly unbearable, as are those of the bodies used as trophies. The accumulation of information and the work of the civil commission coordinated by Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy have made it possible to clarify the specific nature and cruelty of the systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas against women and men on 7 October.
Hamas, using a few photos of hostages smiling as they leave captivity, drugged before their release, is even trying to erase the memory of photos and videos of bodies burnt, raped and degraded. There is the terrifying unspoken story of those hostages who did not return. There is the direct testimony of Hamas members, who say they were ordered to kill, rape and humiliate women. It took the United Nations 53 days to recognise this reality, but at least it has done so.
Disgraceful.
We share the anger and sadness at the number of Palestinian victims of this conflict, and we share the voices of those who are outraged by the violence of Israel’s response, as decided by a nationalist and authoritarian government, guilty of trampling human rights in the occupied territories, attacking the rule of law and, through its irresponsibility, endangering the physical safety of its citizens. But we cannot accept the perverse arguments that use the violence of war as a pretext to call into question the existence of the State of Israel and to seek to eliminate the Jews from their land. Israel is making serious political, moral and legal mistakes. But this must not lead to denying Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora the right to exist and to security, but to campaigning for a two-state solution that also guarantees the Palestinians the right to exist and to security.
Our aim is not to open up a new polemical theme in the current war of positions in France. We want to continue to support our friends, those who are in mourning, or those who feel fragile, with the feeling that there is no longer a protective place in the world; or who are simply not afraid. We will support those who march in the streets of major cities in Israel and around the world against the current Israeli government. Because we believe that there is room for the Israeli and Palestinian people to live in peace, in two democratic states that respect the rights of all their citizens. Because for us it is dishonourable – a question of history, ethics, politics and simply humanity – that our Jewish friends should be targeted and no longer feel at home in France. For us French people – left-wing, non-Jewish people – this is our failure and a loss.
First signatories: Premiers signataires: Anna C. Zielinska (Université de Lorraine), Sandra Laugier (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne), Jean-Yves Pranchère (Université libre de Bruxelles), Aurélie Filippetti (ancienne ministre de la culture), Frédéric Brahami (EHESS, CESPRA), Pierre Brunet (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne), Marc Crépon (CNRS, ENS), Manon Garcia (Freie Universität, Berlin), Marie de Gandt (Université Bordeaux Montaigne), Claude Gautier (ENS Lyon), Bertrand Guillarme (Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis), Cyril Lemieux (EHESS, LIER), Daniel Sabbagh (Sciences Po CERI), Irène Théry (EHESS, Centre Norbert Elias)
The French original of this Open Letter was first published in Libération.