For a month, the Middle East has been putting France under tension. Islamist attack, anti-Semitic acts, racist words on TV sets but also, more discreetly, unpleasant conversations with family, friends or colleagues. The Lebanese newspaper The Orient-The Day recounts the litany of “humiliations, online intimidations or friendly falling outs” that would consume our country. Like Jasmine who explains that she has become angry with several friends since she “actively alerted” about the fate of civilians in Gaza on social networks. Or Younès, a 57-year-old executive who claims to have been ousted from his company after defending Hezbollah against Israel during a lunch.
For The Orient-The Day, This heavy social climate comes mainly from the bans which have hit pro-Palestine demonstrations in recent weeks. “In the dominant media space, there is no doubt, points out the newspaper: the demonstrators are largely assimilated to sympathizers of the Islamist organization [Hamas].” In the same vein, madamasrone of the few independent Egyptian media, collected the signature from several Middle Eastern writers to criticize the French position in the conflict and its management of pro-Palestinian movements. “Ban these demonstrations […] undermines your unconditional support for freedom of expression and serves as an excuse for authoritarian regimes to trample these rights at home,” write the Egyptian, Lebanese and Palestinian authors.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz was nevertheless able to attend the large pro-Palestinian demonstration on November 4 in Paris, where thousands of people marched singing “Palestine will live, Palestine will win”, or even “Everyone hates Israel”… If his journalist did not not being a direct witness to anti-Semitic slogans – heard elsewhere -, she reports having been pushed by a demonstrator who refused to speak “to a reporter from an Israeli media”. A missed opportunity to break the censorship apparently at work in our streets…