The breakup happened abruptly, with no possibility of going back. To put an end to the permanent debates and irreconcilable political disagreements, Sylvie* and her companion decided to leave last April, after the “argument too many”. Tensions crystallized in particular from October 7, 2023, when Hamas had just attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 hostages – including several members of Sylvie’s family. “From the start, I understood that he did not really want to admit that it was a terrorist attack. He waited to see images of the massacred kibbutzim on television to use this term,” recalls the fifty-year-old, from from a Jewish family and herself non-practicing. Perplexed, she decides to no longer raise the subject with her companion, whom she does not warn when she participates in demonstrations for the release of hostages or against anti-Semitism.
But as the months go by, a certain number of thoughts continue to bother Sylvie. “He did not understand my sudden attachment to Israel, asked me if I wanted to get married to change my Jewish name, rather agreed with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s sentence on ‘residual’ anti-Semitism”, illustrates- she said. Even though the mother defines herself as an “anti-Netanyahu”, she understands that her partner now associates her with Israeli political decisions. “Clearly, it was a problem for him,” she says. After several months of tension, the link broke definitively during a dinner, during which Sylvie’s daughter Mathilde Panot, believing that, for the deputy La France insoumise, “all the tensions in the Middle East would be the fault of Israel.” “My companion then replied that it was the truth. When I told him that it was as if he were implying that Israel should no longer exist, he did not respond. That’s where all ended,” concludes Sylvie.
Beyond this romantic breakup, the fifty-year-old expresses her weariness about the flammable nature of the debate: in one year, Sylvie has had to face numerous heated discussions with family or friends. “There are arguments that we didn’t have before. Some of my acquaintances support Israel at all costs, have moved their vote very far to the right and cannot understand that I do not support everything that Israel does. Netanyahu. I’m caught in the crossfire, so I avoid the subject most of the time,” she summarizes. In the French Jewish community, his testimony is widely echoed. While the subject has become more taboo than ever, many people tell L’Express of a certain unease, and of “discussions that have become inevitable”.
“Traumatic memory”
“Oppositions have sharpened in contact with a reality that is itself very violent, which puts civilian lives at stake. Some accept everything in the name of ‘Palestinian resistance,’ while others cannot see anything other than the ‘self-defense’ on the Israeli side These positions are irreconcilable”, analyzes Martine Cohen, sociologist at the CNRS and specialist in Judaism. If tensions have existed for a long time in France on the subject, the deputy director of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), Marc Hecker, associates October 7 with “a brutal return of a double traumatic memory: the pogroms and the Shoah for the Jews, the memory of the Nakba [NDLR : exode palestinien de 1948] for the Palestinians and their supporters.
“We are witnessing a shock to the collective memory, aggravated by violent comparisons in the public space, the question of the qualification of facts, the historical analysis of events from France… All of this leads to very clear positions, where everyone is categorized and where tension can rise very quickly,” adds the specialist.
In such a context, the choice of words can quickly become a trap. For Emilie*, the refusal of some of her friends to use the term “terrorism” to describe Hamas’ actions was a “decisive” element. “For me, there was no possible compromise on the subject. It was a red line crossed by LFI, which opened an endless debate,” testifies this Parisian forty-year-old, from a Jewish family. “Rather left-wing”, she talks about her uneasiness at the time of the legislative elections. In her constituency, where a candidate from the New Popular Front from LFI and a candidate from Les Républicains opposed each other, Emilie even ended up voting on the right. “It led to a lot of arguments with my husband, who is very left-wing,” she emphasizes. With a certain number of friends, the subject has also become “taboo”, due to “very caricatured” positions. When it is suddenly necessary to point out who is responsible for the worst, Emilie regrets “having to constantly [se] justify, choose a side at all costs, without any nuance.”
Same feeling of hesitation about the use by some of those close to him of the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s response to Gaza. “It’s something that makes my hackles rise, because in my opinion this word implies that we are forgetting the responsibility of Hamas in what is happening,” she confides. Conversely, Lina* cannot understand the debate around the use of this term, a source of large misunderstandings in her family, part of which is of Jewish origin. “With my sister, we are irreconcilable on the subject: for me, Israel is in fact carrying out a genocide in Gaza, which does not sit well with her at all,” says this thirty-year-old Parisian. The tension is also palpable on various political and geopolitical analyses. “I consider that Israel should be a secular state, in which the two communities could live together. For me, October 7 is not the beginning of history, we must see things in their globality,” says it is worth. An untenable point of view for his sister, who quickly makes him understand that she does not wish to hear his arguments.
“Lack of nuance”
The unspoken slowly settles into the family: when Lina goes to a demonstration for peace in Gaza, she says nothing about it to her sister the next day, when they find themselves at a march against anti-Semitism. Same embarrassment when his sister confided to him that she was ready to vote for Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest party, feeling “more protected by a government of the extreme right than the extreme left”. “I tried to explain that not all of the left was anti-Semitic, and it made me very angry to get to that point. Especially since I had the feeling of not being able to count on the left to give a clear speech on the subject”, breathes Lina. A situation which does not surprise Marc Hecker, who denounces the “lack of nuance” in political analyzes of the conflict. “The political and media system has favored shock phrases, invectives, shortcuts, leading to the polarization of points of view on an extremely complex subject,” regrets the deputy director of Ifri.
On this very sensitive subject, for which no one is resigned to compromise and everyone allows themselves to lecture, it is difficult for the different sides to find common ground. Even more so when the invectives appear on social networks. On Instagram, Camille* had to sort things out, harassed by messages from one of her ex-companions. “He sent me very pro-Hamas-oriented information on the conflict, fake news, videos that were fifteen years old or from conspiratorial accounts… I ended up blocking him, and I never heard from him again,” says the young woman, from a family of Jewish but non-religious origin. The break is also complete with one of her childhood friends, who regularly sends her press articles on the situation in Gaza, makes “conspiratorial comments” to her, tries to convince her of a “very LFI” position. on the subject. “I saw the direction the party was taking and it blocked me. It had become impossible to understand each other,” summarizes Camille.
A member of the Union of Jewish Students of France, Jérémie also confides that he had to “clean up” his social networks. After October 7, he received videos in particular from a former association friend, who expressly asked him to justify himself on the Israeli intervention in Gaza. “But I am neither Benyamin Netanyahu, nor the Israeli ambassador to the university! This shortcut quickly became very cumbersome,” the young man indignantly says. To the point that with some of his friends, the student even indicates having put in place “an unofficial clause” to avoid talking about the conflict. “It’s better to get to this point than to permanently damage relationships,” he believes, disappointed.
*First names have been changed.
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