With the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe, France has been dancing on a volcano since October 7. The massacres committed by Hamas in Israel, then the military response in Gaza, plunge our country into a state of tension without equivalent among our neighbors. “Clearly, French politicians need to import the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as much as French bakers need to import croissants,” says American historian Robert Zaretsky. in the magazine Politico. A way – admittedly a bit cliché – of saying that war and its effects are already there, in our minds.
Our political debates, in particular, afflict a large part of the planet. Even Haaretz, the major center-left Israeli daily, takes the time to decipher “the suicide of the French left”, whose “anti-Semitism was revealed” by this crisis. A reference for balance since the start of the war, the newspaper does not understand the reasons which push La France insoumise to reject the term “terrorist” to describe Hamas. “The French always pride themselves on emphasizing the importance of the “context” behind events, says the Tel Aviv publication. But in the face of rapes and beheadings, there is no longer any space to hide behind the shade.”
The Israeli newspaper discerns a major danger in this “strange moment in French history”: the new clothes of Marine Le Pen, who unambiguously supports Israel. Haaretz asks: “Will she try to transform the bloodbath in Israel into political gain? If she enters the Elysée in 2027, we will also speak of this dark period as a turning point in History, the one who led Le Pen to the presidency.”