Demonstrations in support of Gazans on American and European campuses are making headlines in Israeli newspapers. However, the conflict is far from over in Gaza, which is awaiting an improbable truce, in Lebanon and in the West Bank. But the university occupations are presented in Israel as another, equally important front: that of the battle for international public opinion.
Benyamin Netanyahu and his faithful right-hand man in charge of propaganda, Ron Dermer, are personally leading this “diplomatic campaign to preserve our freedom of action”. Namely destroying all the infrastructure in the Gaza Strip to weaken Hamas, even if this creates a humanitarian tragedy on the spot and tens of thousands of deaths.
Anti-Semitism felt by many Israelis
The right-wing government regularly portrays the image of a young “woke” Westerner manipulated by the Islamists of Hamas. This goes further, with investigations into the financing of the organizers, attacks ad hominem, and a mixture of symbols. Benyamin Netanyahu, for example, compared the movement in Western universities on April 24 “what was happening in German universities in the 1930s” when Hitler was in power.
An amalgam taken up by almost all the media, and which we find in the analyzes of many Israelis, the majority of whom still support the war. “Everywhere I look I see anti-Semitism”says Rimmon Rosales, principal of a high school in central Israel. “Also with my students, who are confronted with it on social networks or online video games. » According to several reports, anti-Semitic acts are on the rise all over the world.
A withdrawal that would benefit Netanyahu
However, the student demonstrations have not yet undermined the support of a large part of Western governments for Israel. But the American ally fears that rejection of Israel will increase in the event of a military operation in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. For Rimmon Rosales, who also campaigns for the centrist Yesh Atid party, isolation plays into Benyamin Netanyahu’s hands: “this is what keeps him in power”.
Israel’s withdrawal into itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy of Netanyahu, promoter of a Jewish state alone against all and sanctuary for Jews throughout the world. “If we want to avoid becoming a pariah state, we have to ask ourselves what kind of shared future between Israelis and Palestinians we want to establish here”for Yuval Abraham, young investigative journalist for 972a far-left magazine.
