In his last essay entitled A strange defeatDidier Fassin documents how Western governments consented to the “crushing of Gaza” after the criminal attacks of October 7. The professor at the Collège de France sheds harsh light on the acceptance of the massacre of Palestinians.
At the same time, the anthropologist recounts the way in which certain intellectual elites “systematically condemned” all voices opposed to the war, and opposed those who recalled the decades of dispossession and violence to which the Palestinians were victims. However, he perceives a shift from January 26, 2024, the date on which the International Court of Justice indicated that there was a plausible risk of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip. “But it is the support for its destruction that history will remember,” assures Didier Fassin. Interview.
Your book tends to demonstrate that the Western world as a whole supports the collective punishment of Israel in Gaza. Why was it important to write it for you?
Didier Fassin In my eyes, it was essential to leave a trace of these events and their interpretation. On the one hand, because the version of the facts presented by the Jewish State was taken up as is by the public authorities and some of the Western intellectual elites. They supported Israel’s policies and consented to its massacres. This position was also relayed by a number of major media. Contradicting it exposed you to denunciations and sanctions.
On the other hand, this narrative began to change following the decision of the International Court of Justice considering a plausible genocide. Accused of this crime, the Israeli state then tried to forget the exterminating declarations of these leaders. Western governments then also renounced their most bellicose speeches and their refusal of a ceasefire. The same goes for the intellectual elites. History was beginning to be rewritten. We tried to erase the most embarrassing traces of encouragement of war crimes carried out in the name of what we called the right to defend oneself.
How do you explain this complacency of Western elites and states towards Israel?
More than the historical responsibility of European countries with regard to the Shoah, what is at stake is that Israel represents a Western bastion in a Muslim region perceived as hostile. The rise of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism, combined with the association of the image of Palestinians with terrorism, play an important role in the consent to the crushing of Gaza. Because the Israeli government has been clear since October 7. This is not just an Israel-Hamas war. It is the entire Palestinian nation that the president of the Hebrew state has designated as responsible, justifying merciless repression against civilians, in reference to Amalek, the biblical enemy of the Jews.
According to you, there is therefore a selective compassion and an “inequality of lives” depending on whether we are in Ukraine or in Palestine?
There is indeed an asymmetry. Weapons are being sent to the Ukrainians so that they can defend themselves against the Russian invasion. At the same time, the Israeli war machine is being fueled so that their army destroys the homes and inhabitants of Gaza. This asymmetry concerns the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole. The media legitimately allowed compassion to be expressed towards the Israeli families who were victims of October 7. On the other hand, they rarely showed the suffering of Palestinian families. During the 2009 and 2014 bombings against Gaza, however, there were 250 times more civilians and 550 times more children killed on the Palestinian side than on the Israeli side. There have been more than 41,000 Palestinian deaths since October 7 and this toll is largely underestimated.
After the October 7 attacks, several atrocities reported in the media turned out to be fabricated. Has this false information fueled a feeling of revenge even in the West?
We have in fact spoken of forty decapitated infants, of a pregnant woman disembowelled, of two undressed teenage girls showing signs of rape. These fake news aroused a feeling of horror and anger which fueled the spirit of vengeance in the Israeli population and Western support for the announced reprisals. However, investigations carried out by Israeli journalists have established that these atrocities were fabricated. However, they continued to feed Israeli communication. The Palestinian population was accused of having rejoiced, while the President of the United States himself shared this false information.
“What is at stake is that Israel represents a Western bastion in a Muslim region perceived as hostile” Didier Fassin
The independent UN mission nevertheless concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual violence had been committed by the attackers. It is therefore not a question of minimizing the war crimes and probably against humanity perpetrated that day.
However, Operation Al Aqsa Flood is considered by some as an anti-Semitic pogrom on the Western side, and sometimes as an act of resistance in the countries of the South. How come there are two such different readings?
To speak of a pogrom is to reduce the Hamas attack to an absolute, irrational crime, a pure act of anti-Semitic hatred. To speak of resistance is to recall the decades of oppression and colonization, of violence and depredations, of humiliation and provocations which preceded the attack. The description of a pogrom erases history, absolves the Jewish state of responsibility and legitimizes its ferocious repression. It therefore prevails among supporters of the Israeli government. The qualification of resistance reinscribes the event in a history, invites us to reflect on the violations of United Nations resolutions by Israel and the lack of reaction of the international community to these violations. She therefore stands out among the defenders of Palestinian rights.
What is at stake in considering Hamas or Hezbollah as solely terrorist organizations?
This qualification above all makes it possible to legitimize the war. It is retained by most Western countries, but not by the majority of Southern countries. Historically, states have decided that the word “terrorism” can only be attached to actions carried out by non-state entities. Thus, a stabbing attack by a Palestinian man who injures an Israeli police officer is a terrorist act, but a bombing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army, whose officials claim they want to create a shock in the population, is a military operation.
The use of the term terrorism also allows international aid organizations for Palestine such as UNRWA to be discredited…
Israel’s accusation of involvement of members of this United Nations humanitarian agency in the deadly October 7 incursion aimed to delegitimize an institution that allows Palestinians to survive in conditions of extreme scarcity. It was effective, leading several Western states to cut off their funding and sparing Israel criticism for the assassination of dozens of United Nations aid workers. However, an independent mission established that the allegations against UNRWA were false. The Israeli government has not even tried to provide evidence of this.
You analyze the role of journalists in the propagation of false information shared by the Israeli army…
Hundreds of journalists from around the world have themselves condemned the pro-Israeli bias of mainstream Western media. Investigations have established that editorial staff asked their teams not to use words that could affect Israel’s image. They had to evoke the war by relating it to the events of October 7 without mentioning the history in which they were part. This bias was mainly that of national television and radio and even more so of continuous news channels. The written press has been more vigilant and has somewhat corrected this trend. But independent media in Israel, in Arab countries and in the Western world, have conducted investigations undermining the communications of the Jewish state, revealing the atrocities committed by the Israeli army and the violence suffered by Gazans.
Finally, in your opinion, has Israel permanently lost the international support it had before October 7?
The moral legitimacy of the Jewish state has been deeply shaken by the cruelty of its war in Gaza, its blockade which starves the inhabitants and the destruction of everything that can recall the history and culture of the Palestinian people. But the political support provided by almost all Western countries and some of the neighboring Arab states has not been shaken. A moral and political gulf has opened up in the world order between the countries of the North and the countries of the South in the face of the catastrophe of the crushing of Gaza.
