The Left, the Jews, and the Gangster

An overview of the French municipal elections that have just concluded might give the impression that the polarization we have been witnessing for some time is simply continuing. France is undergoing a shift seen in many European democracies. Alliances between the right and the far right are multiplying without causing much concern, a sign that reactionary nationalism is the most powerful force of the moment. And on the left, radicalism is asserting itself in a strictly oppositional stance. La France Insoumise, France’s far-left party, which was predicted to lose ground, has instead emerged from the election strengthened, forming a bloc large enough to prevent social democracy from exerting decisive influence. Its “politics of the worst” thus continues unabated. Its favorite theme remains the same, becoming increasingly pronounced as the campaign progresses: it revolves around Jews and Israel, antisemitism and anti-Zionism. For its part, the far right capitalizes on this, strategically drawing from the same source to assume the counterintuitive role of the anti-Muslim protector of Jews, and exploiting the accusation of antisemitism as much as it can as a windfall, even if it means venturing a bit far from its base—a base with antisemitic as well as racist convictions, which remain deeply entrenched.

Yet upon closer inspection, we see that something new has indeed occurred. The left has become more deeply divided than before. A segment reacted and said no to LFI, no to its power plays, no to its primary ideological lever. This rejection was certainly not firm or widespread enough among socialists, environmentalists, and communists to cause a complete split. Nevertheless, it managed to mitigate the polarization and allowed one of the main sources of hatred fueling it to be clearly identified. In several cases, far from weakening the left, this stance actually contributed to its victory. In short, a glimmer of hope has emerged.

Antisemitism is not a disqualifying factor for a significant portion of left-wing opinion, while it is a defining factor for another. On the one hand, it is not a stigma that causes a significant loss of votes; on the other, it is a signal capable of consolidating a well-entrenched position.

But ensuring that this position does not fade away requires much more than this refusal, however categorical it may be. For we must also acknowledge this: by repeatedly injecting blatant antisemitic tropes into the public debate—however cloaked they may be in the veneer of anti-colonialism and the struggle against the ruling classes and elites—LFI has discredited itself only marginally. Its leader, in the interval between the two rounds of voting, was thus able to boast: the bet placed on his downfall did not pay off. In this, he speaks the truth. His provocations, to be sure, had become so explicit and virulent that it had finally become necessary to name what they were—namely, anti-semitism—and consequently to distance oneself from them as required. The momentum of the “no” camp arose from this. But since no counter-narrative had been forged, since we did not get to the heart of the matter—which consists of deconstructing what “left-wing” antisemitism is today and understanding the central role it plays in the self-proclaimed struggle for emancipation and social justice—we were content to bet that “it wouldn’t work.”

Has antisemitism become politically acceptable?

Yet it works all the same. Hence the conclusion, however embarrassing it may be: antisemitism is not, or rather is no longer, as disqualifying as one might have thought among those generally situated on the left of the political spectrum. Those who reject it have managed to assert themselves and unite, but they remain a minority and relatively weak. More precisely: antisemitism is non-disqualifying for a significant portion of the left-wing public, while it is qualifying for another. On the one hand, it is not a stigma that causes a significant loss of votes; on the other, it is a signal capable of consolidating a well-established position.

It should be noted that the two segments we have just distinguished are not to be confused. Considering that antisemitism is a positive quality, and believing that, however negative it may be, it does not disqualify—or at least not radically—are not exactly the same thing. Between the two, however, a connection is formed, or at least a reconciliation. If we want to rethink the left today and give it the means to rebuild itself, this is what we must pay attention to. We must reach the point where the two segments converge and dismantle the dichotomy they form. It is only through this approach that the counter-narrative we seek can begin—that is to say, all those on the left for whom there is indeed still disqualification for antisemitism will be able to find the means to strengthen the position they have taken in recent weeks, and to promote a trend entirely different from the one that has been hegemonic until now.

Why is this the case? What makes this group—Jews, associated with the existence of a state created for them—such a focal point of the debate, particularly on the left?

We will start with an obvious fact that the clamour of political debate too often tends to obscure. Not everything stems from LFI. On the surface, this party appears to be a driving force, a unique impulse, a consistent current. In reality, it is nothing more than a symptom. It serves as a focal point for the effects of a deep crisis within the entire left, one that did not begin yesterday, nor even during the party’s ten years of existence. What has become spectacularly evident since October 7—though as the culmination of a decades-long evolution—is that this crisis reaches its climax in what is at stake regarding Jews and Israel, the two inseparably linked, in public opinion.

Why is this the case? What makes this group—the Jews, associated with the existence of a state created for them—such a focal point of the debate, particularly on the left?

The Jewish Question at the Heart of the History of the European Left

To understand this, we must take a step back and adopt a broad perspective on what constitutes left-wing politics in relation to minority issues. All minorities are unique in their history, their memory, and their modern fate within the nation-states where they are integrated. Each raises questions that give the generic concept of integration its real substance, which varies depending on the specific locations and situations. In all cases, the goal is to build a shared sense of belonging where the expectations of justice held by the various groups, social classes, and individuals involved can be heard and addressed through the policies actually implemented. These policies are “left-wing” insofar as equality and freedom together govern the construction of the sought-after shared sense of belonging—that is, the solidarity of individuals, classes, and groups. Individual and collective emancipation and egalitarian social integration are the guiding principles of such a policy.

It should be noted, however, that in the actual history of all of Europe, the Jewish minority occupies a very particular position. On the one hand, its trajectory has been internal to Europe over the very long term. And on the other hand, in its modern phase, the Jewish question has become consubstantial with the dual process of emancipation and integration that has taken hold. It has become so in the sense that it was conceived from the outset as the major test, the sine qua non condition for success. Beginning with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the validity of the process was tested by its ability to include those who were previously considered “obstinate” in their particularism. And symmetrically, something else occurred, equally significant: the old-new entrants contributed, from their own unique perspective, to the formulation of the highest goal of political communities—one expressed in terms of freedom, equality, and solidarity for all. They became, not passive witnesses, but active participants in the fullest sense of the new shared world—a world in which they were not merely included, but in which they intervened and built it on an equal footing with all its other members.

Yet immediately, the flip side of these two developments was commensurate with the expectations underlying them: antisemitism grew steadily as a counter-reaction, finding adherents in all political camps, on the right as well as the left. Those who embodied the sine qua non condition were rejected, and their contribution perceived as the worst form of corruption. Antisemitism gained acceptance and grew out of all proportion. Like an unstoppable flood, it culminated in the consent of all European states to the great German project of exterminating the Jews.

The antisemitic outbursts of LFI take on, for a substantial core, a defining character. They derive this character from the fact that they are the most accurate expression of the “non-politics” that masks the absence of an authentic left-wing politics.

After the Shoah, this had to be acknowledged. Little by little, people realized the kind of suicide that the “destruction of the Jews of Europe”—to borrow the sober and precise title of Raul Hilberg’s seminal work—had represented. Tacitly or explicitly, in their new union, these states then acknowledged two things: that reconstruction entailed a relentless fight against the discrimination and persecution threatening all minorities, including the most integrated ones, which presupposed that the struggle against antisemitism would occupy a central position. And they recognized that this vigilance guaranteed nothing, that there could never be absolute certainty on this matter in liberal democracies, and therefore that Zionism—the creation of a state for the Jews—was, at the very least, legitimate.

This European common sense was forged gradually in the post-1945 era. It crystallized in what might be called post-Shoah Europe, the underlying reality of post-1945 Europe. Not all political camps adopted the same stance on this issue. Only extreme positions, however, on both the left and the right, rejected this common sense, sought to dismantle it, which logically led them to converge on Shoah denial, the inverted image of post-Shoah European consciousness. What matters, however, is that, on all sides, reflection deepened on the essential points: the fight against racism and antisemitism, with an awareness of the singularity and irreducibility of the latter, and recognition of the legitimacy of a state for the Jews, which was overarching in relation to the constraints of decolonization, and more specifically to the conflict between Jewish and Arab nationalization processes in the Middle East, with its share of wars, violence, and injustices unfolding over the years.

From this awareness, and without turning away from its complexity, the left positioned itself at the forefront beginning in the 1960s. The rationale was by no means superficial: it rested on the fact that it is up to this political current to rigorously articulate the demands for justice for both individuals and groups within a fully integrated and increasingly egalitarian society. That a radical understanding of the intertwining of the new Jewish question—in which Zionism plays a structuring role—and the new European question—in which the convergence of nations rests on respect for minority rights—could thus prevail on the left was hardly surprising. Positions regarding Israeli policy and its shift to the right may have varied, and the harshness of the criticism directed at it may have intensified, but the legitimacy of that state’s existence remained unchallenged, standing as a bedrock that made no sense to question.

From Post-Shoah Consciousness to Non-Politics

But a shift began in the 1990s. A crisis emerged in both the concept of integration and that of emancipation, so that the self-understanding of national societies with a history reunited within the European project lost its self-evidence. Jews were the most direct victims of this, not because of a resurgence of discrimination, but because of a resurgence of actual persecutions, and because of the majority society’s inability to recognize these as violations of its principle of solidarity. Certainly, people were horrified by the crimes committed. But as for tracing them back to what they undermined in the shared experience and from everyone’s perspective, it quickly became clear that the task had become much more difficult. At the same time, the recharacterization of Zionism as Western colonial domination was gaining ever more ground. For this, it was no longer necessary, moreover, to resort to Shoah denial; there was no longer any need to reverse post-Shoah consciousness, since it sufficed for doubts to grow regarding what founded it. The result was that the Jewish question was no longer understood as a European issue. It became inopportune, suspected of particularism, and seen as the sign of an embarrassing problem. For what it indicated was no longer a challenge to be met in order to build an ever more just policy, but the ideological deficit into which we were sinking—precisely on the left—in our efforts to conceive a policy that is truly inclusive at the national level and carries a distinctly European meaning on the international stage.

This deficiency, or this void, is the space from which LFI constantly draws its strength. It is there that its grounds for denunciation proliferate, along with the negativity of its political and social criticism. It is clear that its antisemitic outbursts—not Holocaust-denying but anti-Zionist—(antisemitism, in which criticism of Israeli policy is seen as a guilty compromise, being the functional equivalent of Holocaust denial in the new ideological configuration)—are not, therefore, peripheral excesses or missteps the party could do without. With a certain flair, its leader is well aware of the cardinal role of mobilization—whether conscious or unconscious, it matters little—that only these remarks are capable of fulfilling. Beyond the subjective force of intentions, they are driven by a kind of necessity. This is why, for a substantial core, they take on a defining character. They derive this character from the fact that they are the most adequate expression of the “non-politics” that masks the absence of authentic left-wing politics.

Antisemitism is not, or rather is no longer, as disqualifying as one might have thought among those generally situated on the left of the political spectrum. The proponents of rejection have succeeded in asserting themselves and uniting, but they remain a minority and relatively weak.

But LFI did not create this non-politics in any way. We have seen that it corresponds to a pathology affecting the entire left, ever since the latter allowed the historical consciousness to disintegrate—a consciousness that had managed, after 1945, to link the post-Shoah Jewish question, social justice centered on integration, and a European policy of defending rights in which the recognition of a state for the Jews was non-negotiable. It is in this context that we understand why, for a whole segment of public opinion extending beyond the small group of conscious or unconscious antisemitic individuals of the time, the positions taken by many LFI leaders—however crude and ill-advised they may seem—may not be truly disqualifying. Admittedly, for this broad segment, the reference to Jews is not a rallying cry or a rallying sign. For them, on the contrary, one suspects that this reference causes discomfort. It is something one would prefer not to see appear. And yet, the gap is not widening. In other words, the two positions are, at heart, reconcilable.

It is this reconciliation that must be addressed. If the two segments can be joined, it is thanks to the perpetuation of the void and the dissipation of historical consciousness—as social and political consciousness—which is the primary cause. Remedying this, as we can see, would require reinventing a left-wing politics by picking up the thread that has been broken and weaving it anew within the coordinates of the present. An immense effort, which, let us admit, very few today are prepared to undertake. This is what was initiated during these municipal elections by those who stood up against the left’s drift and pointed out its true source without looking away. What remains to be done, if we want this camp to grow stronger, is to show in relation to what the drift occurred, from which trajectory we have strayed, and for what reasons. This requires unpacking, in all its dimensions and without neglecting any of the lines that form its concrete outline, the question of integration as it is formulated in France and Europe—a question of which the Jewish issue, due to the considerable amount of tension it concentrates, is today the most visible facet.