The context
This match did not happen in a neutral context, to say the least. It took place exactly thirteen months after the attacks of October 7, 2023 in Israel, where Hamas massacred 1,200 Israeli soldiers and citizens and kidnapped 250 hostages. Thirteen months after the start of the response provided by the Israeli government to this massacre, namely total war against the population of Gaza, more than 40,000 deaths and the massive destruction by bombing of all infrastructures, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza but also in the West Bank, the bombings in Lebanon also with thousands of deaths.
The Hamas attack, horrific as it was, itself took place in the context of decades of imperialist and racist domination by the Israeli state, recurring bombings of the Gaza Strip and illegal colonization in the West Bank. Decades of violations of international law by Israel, but with the continued support of Western states who have since the beginning conceived this state as an advanced bridge to the Middle East. When the current war is denounced by international authorities, when the genocidal risk is pointed out by the International Court of Justice, Western governments continue to support Netanyahu, in words and in material, and the Arab States are conspicuously absent.
The facts
On the day of the match in Amsterdam, Israeli supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv (real or perceived) were violently attacked, chased and beaten, some even thrown into canals, by hooligans and perhaps others. , all accompanied by a clearly anti-Semitic speech. But although the media have extensively reported this anti-Semitic violence, the facts are not limited to that.
Indeed, thousands of Israeli supporters having arrived in the preceding days, some of them engaged in abuses as early as Wednesday. As told Mediapart : Israeli supporters “in groups, attack at least one taxi driver and vandalize his vehicle, roam the city center chanting racist slogans, throw beer and attack passers-by around Dam Square, in the heart of the city, destroy Palestinian flags. We also see, on a video shot in broad daylight, a man hoisted by two others to the first floor of a building struggling to pull one off under the encouragement of his companions. (…) Some Maccabi supporters continue to behave like classic hooligans, with anti-Arab racism and support for the war against the Palestinians on top of that. »
This unleashing of Israeli hooligans is obviously not unrelated to the events of the next day. Among their opponents were clearly all kinds of people, from simple supporters of the Palestinian cause to real anti-Semites, including Dutch racist hooligans.
Media coverage and politicization of facts
If it is undeniable that part of the violence of November 7 was motivated by anti-Semitism, and that the violence thus motivated is condemnable without reservation, it is also obvious that we cannot limit ourselves to that. Yet this is what the major news channels have done in total convergence with the leaders of Western Europe and North America.
From Macron to Biden, including Trudeau and of course, Netanyahu himself, everyone has denounced anti-Semitic acts as well as his references to pogroms and “dark hours of history” (the mayor of Amsterdam has since returned to her remarks by apologizing for having used the term “pogrom” – she also admitted to having been influenced by Netanyahu’s rhetoric)… while ignoring the provocations and attacks racist anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian attacks from Israeli fascist hooligans. Through their totally truncated presentation of reality, in exclusive and unrelenting defense of Israeli supporters as a whole, Western media and leaders are constructing “alternative facts” worthy of the most vulgar Trumpism.
This unilateral interpretation in favor of Israel, knowingly maintaining the confusion between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, is not new. It has been increasing for two decades in the Western world and has greatly accelerated since October 7, 2023. In France, from the institutional left to the far right, including Macron and the rest of the right, most have chosen , in a burst of colonialist solidarity but under the guise of the fight against anti-Semitism, unconditional support for the Israeli camp.
This leads not only to a complicit silence on the massacres and violations of international law perpetrated by Israel, but also to a criminalization of the expression of support for the Palestinian people, through the banning of demonstrations, police interventions against supporting occupations. on campuses last spring, legal proceedings against activists. All this, always, in the name of the fight against anti-Semitism. A reason of which we can be all the less fooled since, on the contrary, the confusionism equating anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism ends up endangering all those, Jews and Jews (real or supposed), who find themselves thus, and well despite themselves, assimilated to the policy of the State of Israel.
On October 30, a Renaissance deputy tabled, with the support of François Hollande and a few other socialist deputies, a bill aimed at condemning “renewed forms of anti-Semitism” but aimed more concretely at making support for Palestine illegal. Let us note the sleight of hand in this formula: assimilating criticism of the State of Israel to “renewed form of anti-Semitism” does not allow one to defend oneself, since the terms of the law postulate what should be demonstrated. But moreover this law, if it were passed, would amount to an unprecedented restriction of freedom of expression in political matters since it would involve, and for the first time, the assimilation of a political opinion, in this case the criticism of the policy pursued by a State is a crime. We can therefore only be concerned to see an additional step taken in the attacks on public freedoms, which are increasingly being abused.
Another illustration of the exploitation of the fight against anti-Semitism, in football again: when PSG supporters deployed a giant tifo « Free Palestine » who called for “world peace” at the Parc des Princes on November 6, the hostile reactions were not long in coming, until the minister of the Interior Retailleau shook his head and summoned officials from PSG and the FFF. As for the France-Israel match on November 14, it was held in an ultra-secure atmosphere with thousands of police and gendarmes, a ban on Palestinian flags… all in the presence and with the ostensible support for Israel from Macron, Hollande and Sarkozy. With stands three-quarters empty and monstrous money spent by a government that is nevertheless sacrificing essential public services in the name of reducing debt.
Stay the course
Western leaders and media have fully embraced the “clash of civilizations” ideology. The great Soviet enemy having disappeared since the end of the Cold War, it was logically necessary to replace it. Then took over in the role of the absolute enemy the Muslim countries and populations, Arab in particular, formerly colonized and therefore making up a significant proportion of immigrant workers in Western metropolises. The development of Islamism in certain sections of these communities, particularly in reaction to Western hostility, has in turn strengthened the latter.
The situation has accelerated since October 2023. The unwavering support for Israel assumed from the outset by Europe and North America for the defense of their interests in the Middle East has turned into support for a colonial war. total attack against Arabs and (Palestinian) Muslims. The fight against anti-Semitism has become the reason systematically invoked to justify the unjustifiable and to cover up generalized anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia.
What to do about this? The response provided so far by the anti-fascist camp or by the radical and revolutionary left is insufficient.
We must of course tirelessly continue the struggle in support of Palestine, against the Israeli colonial state and its far-right leaders, against the war and the ethnic cleansing it is carrying out, for an immediate end to the massacres, the liberation Palestinians locked up and tortured. The Palestinians and the Lebanese are faced with the erasure of their lives, their territories and their culture, it is more than urgent to put an end to it. Even if our petitions, our leaflets, our platforms and our actions in France have no immediate impact on the situation in Gaza or Lebanon, it is crucial to maintain this course for the future, to bring about a future other than the one dreamed of. by Netanyahu's allied supremacists.
But it takes more than that. The challenge is to break the ideology of the “clash of civilizations” endorsed by Macron, Hollande, Le Pen, and broadcast continuously by BFM TV and CNews. We must reclaim the fight against anti-Semitism and lead it in convergence with the fight against Islamophobia. The situation in France has become grotesque where the National Rally, heir to a party founded by former Pétainists and Waffen SS, claims to participate in the fight against anti-Semitism and as such integrate the republican arc, while a part of the “radical” left (LFI, NPA and beyond) is regularly accused of anti-Semitism because of its support for the Palestinian cause.
Anti-Semitism is a particular racism, strongly linked to conspiracy, to a disarming conception of “stateless” elites suspected of wanting to destroy our societies, while it is capitalism and its profiteers who are crushing people and setting the planet on fire. and bloody. The fight against anti-Semitism must return to the heart of the anti-fascist fight, integrated into the fight against all racism. There are no “priority” struggles and others that are “secondary”. The struggle for human emancipation cannot be divided, and our camp must resolutely fight colonialism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all racism, as well as all forms of domination.
BAF NancyNovember 21, 2024.
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