Selective indignation about the Middle East is abhorrent. The most widespread example of this phenomenon? The pro-Palestinian and above all anti-Israeli music that damages its own cause with every intervention - and every silence.
The tragedies unfolding in the Middle East are once again giving rise to confrontations that are as inappropriate as they are inflammatory in our own countries. Some citizens who identify with certain communities are siding with whichever side suits them, abandoning the need for distance in favor of dogmatism and religious nationalism. The most emblematic case of this phenomenon is undoubtedly the deep-rooted pro-Palestinian trend that can be observed in the streets, but also on social networks and even in university corridors, and which is damaging its own cause with every intervention and silence.
A double standard: Israeli bombardments in Gaza are genocide, but no qualification for the thousand or so civilians, babies, children, mothers and old people killed in the Hebrew state by Hamas terrorists on October 7, some decapitated, others blown up or burned alive, still others cut to pieces in front of their parents! Israel is said to be solely responsible for these atrocities, through its «apartheid policy» in Palestine. Worse still, Hamas is said to be a resistance and liberation movement. «Support for Hamas» and «Allahu akbar», we heard in Switzerland...
And so much the worse if Hamas openly wishes the destruction of Israel, the death of the Jews and of Judeo-Christian civilization, so much the worse if homosexuality is punishable by ten years« imprisonment in Gaza and women are considered subhuman: the Geneva feminist committee »Foulards violets« or the French-speaking anti-racist group »Outrage collectif" say nothing about it, because all is forgiven to the damned of the Earth!
Here we find what was already obvious (no pun intended) when the Taliban took power in Kabul in August 2021: these militant groups, who all year round denounce the «systemic racism» and «rape culture» in which Switzerland is allegedly embroiled, have not seen fit to show solidarity with Afghan women, victims of Islamist ideology. The same goes for Iranian women, who risk their lives by tearing off their headscarves. No, these activists prefer to defend «the freedom to veil» and accuse the Swiss Confederation's «colonial policy».
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But beware: criticism of this selective indignation must not in turn become selective indignation: too many people who are clear-sighted about the failure of these pro-Palestinian approaches avoid, out of comfort, also being indignant about those voices which, in turn, fall into another Manichaeism, the one that justifies all Israeli policies in the name of the unspeakable suffering of the Holocaust and the right to self-defence.
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Is it so complicated to name Islamist terrorism and its unjustifiable aspects, while at the same time criticizing Israeli policy? How despairing it is to see the number of fellow journalists who refuse to do so, preferring to embark on the simplistic and dangerous narrative of the struggle between eternal dominants and eternal dominated. To those who see the Jews as the new Nazis, let us reply that their way of systematically seeing a form of conspiracy or undue advantage in an enviable or simply different situation - such as that of Israel compared to the rest of the region, in many respects - has little to envy to Hitler's anti-Semitism.
Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com
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