On October 7, 2023, 1,205 people were killed by Hamas members in Israel, on the Gaza border. The terrorist group had taken 251 civilians hostage, 63 are still being held, including two children.
Upon discovering the horror of the images filmed and broadcast by Hamas, and the reactions in France, Arthur denounced those who “find extenuating circumstances for these terrorists”. The host-producer then received numerous death threats and was placed under police protection. A security system that is still in place a year later.
A life turned upside down
“I still work as hard. I am still an animator-producer, but let’s say that I have lost a little of my activity since I am accompanied, protected 24 hours a day. Where, at one time, I could go down for a coffee, like that, without warning the friends, now it’s a whole organization,” he explained, on this sad anniversary, to Apolline de Malherbe in her show “Face à Face” on BFMTV-RMC.
His daily life has been regulated for a year with a weekly visit to the police station, where he gives the police “a USB key with all the threats” he receives as well as “the insults”. If he does not know the individuals who send him these “torrents of mud”, Arthur also confides that “a few days after October 7” 2023, his circle of friends became restricted.
“I lost people I had a lot of affection for, but I met great people. […] Empathy cannot be invented and I have friends – who I considered friends – who were cruelly lacking in it,” he added.
Art in response
The presenter put together an exhibition, I Don’t Want to Forgetat the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The works of 25 Israeli artists, created in response to the October 7 massacre and from the collection of Arthur and his wife Mareva Galanter, are presented to the public.
“Artists never lie. In a world where we deny, where we justify rapes and massacres, art will, for generations and generations, tell the truth. That was the objective, because the trauma of October 7 will last for years. For me it’s a never ending day and I think it will take generations for us to recover from this pogrom, generations for us to recover from the anti-Jewish hatred around the world. No one could have imagined that this dormant anti-Semitism would arise with such force, and from everywhere,” Arthur added.
Since October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has engaged in a war against Hamas, bombing Gaza in response to the terrorist attack. According to official figures from the terrorist organization, nearly 42,000 civilians have been killed over the past year, including 11,000 children. An undervalued assessment, according to several experts, including former French air force officer Guillaume Ancel, or even scientists from The Lancet who estimate the death toll at 186,000, taking into account indirect deaths due to malnutrition and lack of care, as relayed by France Info. The conflict has recently spread to Lebanon, with the Israeli government launching an offensive against Hezbollah.