In the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel, François Ruffin expressed his "support for the victims and for Israeli society." But he pointed out that "support for the Israeli government must not be blindly given." The radical left MP for the Somme département in northern France also regretted France's "alignment" with the United States on the subject.
Before cold analysis, I want to express my warm emotional response: horror at women, children shot at point-blank range, young people dancing murdered, mass graves uncovered every day, by whole families. So many atrocities, so much cruelty, that we couldn't even dare to imagine. And now, the violence in Gaza, these 2.5 million people, advised to leave, as if they had somewhere to go to. I unreservedly condemn the actions of Hamas. It's a fanatical, terrorist organization, which has always been the adversary of progressives in the Middle East, hostile to any peace compromise, which wants the end of the State of Israel.
It is important also to mention the Hamas breeding ground. Turning Gaza into an open-air prison, with no hope for young people, has nurtured the worst. What we have here is a face-off between a "fanatical Islamist organization" and "an idiotic Israeli policy", according to Israeli historian Elie Barnavi, coming from Benyamin Netanyahu's far-right government. Without a mediator to stand in the way, an infernal machine was set in motion. And yet, for the last 10 years, the international community has been silent. With the Abraham Accords [in 2020], the West tried to straddle the Palestinian question. It was a failure.
My support for the victims and for Israeli society is self-evident. But support for the Israeli government must not be blindly given. Our constant objective must be a ceasefire and peace. On Monday, in the statement issued by the five countries, including France, the word peace never appeared: That's a big problem.
Because we're aligned with the United States. Emmanuel Macron's zealous activism on Twitter [renamed X] doesn't make up for his desertion of the issue for years. The De Gaulle-Mitterrand tradition [the foreign policy launched by Charles de Gaulle and continued by François Mitterand] was to express ourselves independently, without aligning ourselves, to affirm that there is no military solution to the conflict, to call for respect for international law, to rely on the UN, and to support the creation of a Palestinian state in accordance with UN resolutions. This was France's position until the early 2000s, under Jacques Chirac. Since then, there has been silence, absence, and alignment.
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