October 7 did not only reopen the wound of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it also revived a fault line buried in the Western consciousness, particularly in Europe. The event laid bare the link between the history of the Middle East and that of the continent that scrutinizes its explosions. For October 7 was not only imported into the debates: it was reflected upon, revealing the internal crisis of a Europe uncertain of its post-Shoah and post-colonial legacy, and now divided between three irreconcilable narratives—the Western-oriented, the anti-colonial, and specifically the European. At the heart of this divide are two haunting questions: What remains of Europe if it can no longer recognize what the resurgence of antisemitism means, here and there? But also, what remains of Zionism as a European project if its response to antisemitism in terms of the rights of peoples eludes it just as much?
October 7 is clearly a landmark event in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it was immediately something else as well: an earthquake in Western consciousness. More specifically, it was also a European event, with Europe regaining a symbolically central—though not dominant—position in what we call the West.
This was true in two senses. First, there was the recurring and not-so-new issue of imported conflict. Certain political currents and social movements immediately drew on this event to fuel their ideological struggle, the stakes of which are in fact domestic and unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the case of October 7, however, this usual dynamic, which obviously repeated itself, was overdetermined by another, relatively new and more fundamental one. To find an equivalent, we have to go back to 1967 and 1973, to the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. The geopolitical context was certainly very different, both because we were closer to the end of World War II and the meaning we had given to the reconstruction of European politics, and because Israel, victorious in both cases but after having risked disappearing, had not acquired the stature of a regional power that it has today. At these different moments, however, the question arose as to how European national opinions, whether whether expressed in official statements by state leaders or remaining diffuse among the populations, related to the existence of Israel and what that existence represented for the Jewish people as a dispersed people integrated into these states as national minorities. This is what happened again—once more in an obviously new context—after October 7.
On October 7, we witnessed an echo rather than a mere importation. In the events that unfolded, European consciousness was seized as a whole, because it immediately recognized something that objectively concerned it and reengaged its history as it has unfolded over the past three-quarters of a century. There was a point of truth in October 7 , and that was the reason for the general shock. The massacres brought to light not only a new bloody episode in the Middle East conflict—one of the longest in contemporary history, as we like to remind ourselves—but also an aspect of the historical situation in which we find ourselves, insofar as we admit that this historical situation remains intelligible in the coordinates inherited from the post-1945 era. It should be noted that it is possible that these coordinates are no longer valid, that this legacy has dissipated, that intelligibility no longer applies. But precisely, it is the question of whether this is indeed the case that the event has confronted us with. For even in this hypothesis, the transition phase in which we would then be engaged still remains to be described. This too, and above all, October 7—including its aftermath—forces us to think about it.
Reflection, therefore, and not importation. Since reflection allows for distortions, since what we see is only seen from a certain perspective, the unanimously grasped consciousness was also torn on this point of truth. October 7 matters, everyone agrees. But in what way does it matter? Dissensus has manifested itself in this regard on all levels: regarding the crimes committed that day and their motivation, regarding the political and historical context in which they are placed, and regarding what October 7 actually initiated, the war in Gaza and the crimes that it in turn became the scene of. To date, the meaning of the event has not been stabilized in any way: neither in the interpretation of the conditions that preceded and underpinned its emergence, nor in the characterization of the acts that constitute it, nor in the sequence of war that has unfolded since then.
The narratives surrounding October 7 were both narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and repetitions of the narrative of self, acknowledging that Europe has never been a stranger to what was happening there.
Looking back over the past two years, I will discuss the escalation, but also the de-escalation of the war in Gaza in relation to October 7. For now, I will focus on October 7 itself and the polarization it caused. Divergent lines emerged from the same experience. Obviously, they did not arise out of nowhere; their premises existed before. But they only clashed superficially, leaving their assumptions unsaid, ignoring each other, or even agreeing on peripheral issues. The trial has relegated all that to the past. We are now at a different stage in the political debate in Europe, one that is much more divided. This raises the question: what was it about October 7 that had such power to bring people together and divide them so radically?
The only way to find out is to describe the conflict of interpretations and see how, based on the same facts and the same shock, the narratives were woven together. These narratives, it should be noted, had two sides: they were both accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and retellings of personal stories, acknowledging that Europe had never been a stranger to what was happening over there. For what was happening over there was, on the one hand, related to the fate of refugees and survivors of European antisemitism, which had been ongoing for a long time and precipitated by the Shoah, and on the other hand, was taking place on the ruins of the former Ottoman Empire, where the European colonial powers had exercised their domination, only to then agree to a process of decolonization in which national liberation struggles were competing.
The conflict of interpretations
October 7 was interpreted in three distinct ways, put forward by different political camps, and within these camps by different actors (academics, political leaders, activists, multiple actors who differ according to their affiliations, social backgrounds, and age groups): the pro-Israeli Western interpretation, the postcolonial anti-Zionist interpretation, and the more strictly European interpretation. In what follows, I will attempt to describe these interpretations and justify these labels. But first, it is important to emphasize that these camps were largely formed as a result of the new polarization that was taking hold. They were composed differently from the previous form of political debate. This is why the crisis was and remains so profound. None of the poles that structure the ideological debate are exactly the same after October 7 . Each has discovered the flow of historical consciousness to which it is connected. Each has repositioned itself on the grand axis of European history and turned inward to determine which interests and groups it represents and which interpretation of the current situation it supports.
The first line saw October 7 as an attack by an Islamist Palestinian movement against Israel and, by extension, against the West. Spontaneously, the event was linked to other Islamist crimes. It was linked to events such as September 11 or the Bataclan. The issue in this case was defined as civilizational. It is not surprising that such a framing finds favor with reactionary opinions, inclined to reestablish divisions between unequally civilized spaces, some of which are seen as hotbeds of backwardness forcing the West to defend itself, is not surprising. But it would be wrong to limit the interpretation to this position: the classification of Hamas as a terrorist movement, and the fact that its actions have manifested themselves as a murderous hatred that the category of terrorism effectively sums up for all liberal democracies, the fact that it has acted under the cover and with the support of Islamist Iran, which is the opposite of this democratic model, supports this interpretation, on a political spectrum that goes beyond the reactionary pole and largely encompasses the liberal and progressive camp. As for the sequence of events between October 7 and the war in Gaza, in this case it looks as follows: as the issue is one of civilization, the tendency is to accept the consequences of October 7 on the Palestinian people of Gaza, with the eradication of the forces behind the irredentist desire for destruction being the priority.
The first line is therefore pro-Israeli in the name of Western values (which does not mean that it embraces Zionism), and it is the shadow of October 7 that determines its perception of the war in Gaza.
The second line stands in direct contrast. October 7 appears there as a moment in another history, that of the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination. In this context, it is Western colonialism that finds itself in the hot seat through Israel. Let us call this the anti-colonial line. This line may not justify the modus operandi of October 7 (although in extreme cases it has), it may deplore the unleashing of violence on any individual within reach, man, woman, child or elderly person, and even condemn the practice of hostage-taking (which is much less often mentioned), but it nonetheless considers the struggle to be legitimate in its aims. “Free Palestine” is its slogan, adorned with its reference to freedom. It is based on the eradication of colonialism, which post-1945 Europe has indeed aligned itself with, albeit with difficulty. And it continues this struggle as an anti-colonial fight that it believes must still be brought to a conclusion in this part of the world, which means defeating the power exercised by Israel, first over the territories under its control since 1967, and secondly over the Palestinian minority, which it is believed to have oppressed since its foundation.
One comment on this line of thinking: she sees the war in Gaza as confirmation of the validity of her interpretation of October 7. For this line, the war in Gaza is the truth of October 7, with the damage it inflicts on the Palestinian people, whether taken in nuce and in anticipation in the first days following the massacre, or deployed over time and prolonged to the present moment. October 7 has its true meaning in the criminal nature of Zionism, now visible to the world, and the name of the event is absorbed into the task of thinking about the destruction of Gaza.
This position has its privileged supporters on the left of the political spectrum. It stems from its anti-Zionist and postcolonial tendency, self-critical of the European project insofar as it is constitutively colonial. In its radical form, it effectively inscribes colonialism into the principle of the long-term construction of Europe and argues that citizen emancipation within the framework of nation states actually drew its paradoxical condition from it. It takes over from the Third Worldism of the 1960s and 1970s, but transforms it by giving a new extension to the category of colonialism. It mobilizes it to generalize criticism of persistent, and sometimes renewed, discriminatory practices within liberal democracies themselves (which is all the more likely as these democracies are undermined by the rise of nationalism, and therefore of the reactionary camp). In this movement, with the aim of rewriting the history of Europe and criticizing the current injustices that can be attributed to it, both internally and externally, the case of Israel, in its present policy as well as in its history, becomes paradigmatic. Hence the reflexive response to October 7: since Israel embodies criminal Europe, Hamas’s deadly attack amounts to a struggle for liberation.
The second, anti-colonial line places October 7 in the history of the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination and sees the war in Gaza, with the harm it causes to the Palestinian people, as the truth of October 7.
Here too, however, the scope of those who hold this position is expanding. This did not happen immediately. Initially, progressivism, including liberalism and socialism, was divided, seized by the violence of the event. But it is certain that a portion of this current, without giving in on the justification of Hamas, wavered around the argument that the main leader of the far left in France had immediately put forward, that of “contextualization.” Contextualizing October 7 means placing it in a series of other events deemed relevant to its meaning. Here, the series will draw on acts that bear witness to the yoke that Israeli policy has continued to impose on Gaza. Israel’s reactionary policy has intensified with the rise to power of the nationalist far right since March 2023, its truly colonial conduct in the West Bank, as well as the deadly war waged in Gaza, have meant that anti-Zionism, i.e., questioning the very legitimacy of Israel as a state, has seen its resonance increase considerably and encroach on increasingly large segments of public opinion.
While the first line is therefore pro-Israel in the name of Western values (which does not mean that it embraces Zionism), the second is attracted to anti-Zionism. This is supported to varying degrees, ranging from “Free Palestine” to the discreet reminder that Israel owes its existence to a UN grant, suggesting that this could eventually be withdrawn—a phrase that incidentally slipped out of the mouth of the President of the French Republic. For the first position, it is the shadow of October 7 . For the second, the war in Gaza, whether viewed in advance or in terms of its actual unfolding, either relativizes October 7 or requires us to admit that it no longer plays a decisive role in our assessment of the present.
The European position, and the Jews
Finally, there is a third line. Let us try to describe it before sketching an ideological portrait of its proponents. It begins by focusing on October 7 itself, sticking to the facts that occurred there. The motives expressed by the killers are taken at face value (there is no condescension to the crypto-colonialism favored by the second line, which claims that “this is how people express themselves in those parts”). The targeting of the victims is taken into account, as is the manner in which they were executed, raped, mutilated, captured, and tortured. We are then faced with this reality. There was antisemitism on October 7, and it took the murderous form of a passion for extermination, that is to say, genocide.
Looking back, from a distance from the scene of the crimes, where the intermingled voices of commentary tend to dominate, we see that this antisemitism is sometimes named for what it is, but more often denounced without dwelling on it, notably eluding its exterminatory nature; sometimes, it is simply denied, reduced to an anti-colonial reaction that is considered to be the only decisive one.
At the same time, this third position takes note of the impressive wave of antisemitism in Europe, which is also causing deaths, as was the case a few days ago in Manchester. This antisemitism, it is a fact, passes through anti-Zionism and its stigmatization of Israel as a colonial entity to be fought. In this case, we note that what is happening here has its own dynamic, which has been evident for a long time and has been considerably heightened by what has just taken place there. We detect in October 7 a kind of disinhibition, an outburst of words and deeds that reveals the lifting of a constraint. Hatred of Jews manifested itself there, and it was as if it was unleashed here, the two phenomena having been practically simultaneous.
The relevant series in which to place October 7, for this position, delves into the past of anti-Jewish violence; but it is also the more limited series that has seen, in Europe over the last two decades, the Jewish minority increasingly exposed to crimes ranging from torture to murder and the execution of children. Taking a broad view that places the event in the history of this European minority, this position has used the term “pogrom,” in reference to the specific type of anti-Jewish violence that has been perpetrated over a long period of time.
That this description, which is correct in terms of describing the facts in their materiality (rapes, indiscriminate murders, violence against bodies, and the exultation of the killers), it was considered abusive given that the massacre took place in Israel, a country where Jews are in the majority, and therefore persecution by the majority population of a disadvantaged minority does not apply in this case. However, this was overcome for one reason: the October 7 break-in succeeded in neutralizing Israel’s constitutive function as a protector of Jews and a warding off of pogroms, and that Israeli Jews were brought back, during those long hours when they cried out for help, to the vulnerability of any Jew in the diaspora, and to a time when Israel did not exist.
The European interpretation sees October 7 as a disinhibition, an outburst of words and deeds that seems like the lifting of a constraint. Hatred of Jews manifested itself there, and it was as if it was unleashed here, the two phenomena having been practically simultaneous.
This is what suddenly became apparent to Jews around the world. But it can also be said that this is what became apparent to all those, Jews and non-Jews alike, who remembered the reason why Israel exists, namely to protect a structurally minority group, which has the singularity of exposing the inherent vulnerability of any minority condition: never being completely safe, in any state, democratic or not, from persecution by the majority (whether expressed in social movements or state policies). Except, for Jews, in the state they created for their own benefit after the Shoah. A state they made for themselves, accessible and mobilizable if ever the need arises for any member of their people, wherever they may be. A state where, circumstantially, they are in the majority, and thus immune to the potential violence of any majority.
But this state failed. It recovered in the weeks that followed by exercising its power, of course, which meant first and foremost restoring the security of its population as much as possible. More precisely, the population rallied and mobilized in a salutary manner to ensure that this was the case. But it did not recover by putting the fate of the hostages at the forefront of its response, an objective that nevertheless encapsulates its historical justification for rescuing and protecting any member of the people in distress. And he did not recover, and failed again, by waging a war in which it became impossible to discern that it had been designed to embody a democratic and Jewish policy; which means a policy devoted, through its mission to defend Jews and welcome them in all cases where they deem their existence to require it, to embodying an exemplary defense of rights, and first and foremost the rights of minorities. In other words, it did not live up to in the fight against antisemitism that must be triggered by an acute awareness of the antisemitism of October 7 itself.
But the fact that this state has failed through the current policies of its leaders in no way affects the judgment on October 7 and its exterminatory antisemitism—another way of saying it is “genocidal”—and the ensuing diagnosis of the ongoing ideological conflict in Europe. For what became apparent, even before the war in Gaza unfolded, was that the significance of Israel’s existence as a resolution to a European problem outside Europe, a resolution that Europe itself, in the self-criticism it had reached on this path, understood and supported, had in fact been obscured for many years. It took no more than a day to see this. Along with the concealment of the antisemitism of October 7, what signaled it was the reversal that occurred at the very moment on the grounds of genocide. For the new Europeans who were liberated or willingly forgot their post-Shoah consciousness, it was Israel that was potentially, and soon to be, a perpetrator of genocide. It is impossible to understand the focus on this word—and the astonishing fact that it has practically made crimes against humanity seem venial—without grasping it from the perspective of this reversal, and therefore if we overlook the fact that its primary source lies in the refusal to see October 7 for what it was.
What is at issue is the post-World War II revival of the policies of European states, which aligned themselves with an ever-increasing awareness of minority rights and the fight against persecution and discrimination, drawing lessons from the intertwined history of Europe and the Jews that culminated in the Shoah.
No one is neutral in the ideological conflict that I am trying to describe after two years of war. I must therefore point out that I am speaking from this third position. But that does not spare me from trying to characterize it as objectively as possible, without hiding any of its internal tensions. Two questions arise first. Should this position be described simply as “Zionist”? Is it rooted in Jewish sensibilities, presupposing the adoption of a Jewish point of view on the event and on the entire sequence of events?
I believe the answer to both questions is clearly “no.” I believe this regardless of the fact that, personally, I do indeed possess the two characteristics mentioned. But I don’t think I’m deluding myself in judging this point to be relatively circumstantial. The basis of the third position is different—and, as far as I’m concerned, it defines me just as much.
The proponents of the third position are, in essence, nothing more than a certain type of European. They are committed to a certain way of defending the liberal and socialist (progressive in the broad sense) tendencies that are at the heart of the common political project that was revived after 1945. This, in this case, means fighting on two fronts: on the one hand, opposing rising conservatism and the reclassification of this European project in a nationalist sense, where the theme of “Western values” ” is used to justify the real threat posed by Islamism—but reinterpreted as a clash of civilizations in which Islam itself becomes the enemy—is fueling a movement of retraction, of nations closing in on themselves and their absolutized majority identity. And, on the other hand, by resisting the purge that our historical consciousness is undergoing under the blows of anti-Zionism, whose expansive focus is on the far left, in that it erects the perfectly founded imperative of postcolonial self-criticism into dissolution and outright denial of the emancipatory dimension of modern Europe.
What is at stake is the post-World War II revival of the policies of European states, which have aligned themselves with an ever-increasing awareness of minority rights and the fight against persecution and discrimination, drawing lessons from the intertwined history of Europe and the Jews, which culminated in the Shoah. On both fronts described above—no less on the first, in the face of reactionary nationalism, than on the second, in the face of supposedly progressive anti-Zionism—this is what the third position defends; and it recalls that this inclined it to fully recognize Israel’s right to exist, in the form of a democratic state governed by the rule of law and dedicated to the protection of the Jewish people (which is all that “democratic and Jewish” means), a people who embody the vulnerability of minorities in its purest form, a vulnerability that, whatever we do, persists in modern states.
We can see why it is inaccurate to describe the third position as “Zionist.” Nothing here implies adherence to the national revival movement that emerged in the 19th century and achieved statehood in the mid-20th century. It is no more accurate to speak of a “pro-Israel” position, because it is not a question of supporting Israel’s policies, whatever they may be. When those policies become reactionary and jeopardize the standards of a democratic state in its domestic or foreign policy, they are condemned. On the other hand, what remains an immutable point is to consider the existence of Israel as a right, in the strict sense of the term. The creation of a Jewish state, or more precisely a state for Jews, is not simply a fact that must be accepted. It is an achievement on the path to progress in rights that was essential to the reconstruction of Europe after what it had to recognize as its point of collapse. And when crimes reproduce a motive for action that it knows how to identify for what it is, when it has to face the fact that the will to exterminate, here and there, is rising again, it reacts and rebels: through Israel denied as we hear it in the slogan “Free Palestine” here, echoing threateningly what took place as a pogrom there, it is obviously still a matter of antisemitism.
The crisis of European conscience in light of October 7
As we can see, everything hinges on the assertion: “There was antisemitism on October 7.” It is on this point that positions diverge and become irreconcilable. Some admit it, others do not. But above all, even when they do admit it, the meaning they give to the word varies completely, depending on whether or not they understand that what is at stake with regard to antisemitism is in fact a European problem: that of orientation and repositioning on the socio-historical dynamic that continues (or not) to animate Europe, that is to say, to give it meaning.
What October 7 revealed was the other side of the crisis: the fact that Europe is embarrassed about itself. That it no longer understands, or only in flashes, what October 7 was all about, both here and there.
It is common, on the part of the second position, to protest against the instrumentalization of antisemitism to justify Israel’s colonial policy—and, in the present case, its relentless war on Gaza. How can we deny that this is the case, given the statements made by the current Israeli government? How can we deny that this is the case, when the word is brandished as an accusation against any position that rejects the legitimacy of the war in Gaza as it unfolded throughout the sequence? How can we fail to recognize that the word, in their mouths, resonates in the same way as it does in the mouths of far-right leaders who claim to be pro-Israeli on the grounds that they are defending Western civilization? Netanyahu is the opponent of the third position, above all because he is the projection in Israel of the most reactionary attitude inherent in the first.
But precisely, we must see this as a sign of a double deviation, where the meaning of what antisemitism represents in the history of post-Shoah Jews is disintegrating in Israel as well as in Europe. Israel has duties, summed up by the term Zionism, or more precisely “realized” Zionism, which has taken the form of a state for the Jews. And Europe has duties, including supporting this realization as a right, not as a privilege or a revocable concession. Zionism realized in a state (which was expressed in the term “democratic and Jewish” politics) becomes corrupted when it turns into pure nationalism (which the 2018 law on Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people” sought to enshrine). It becomes corrupted by turning into a policy of power, criminal in relation to the rights of peoples. But it becomes corrupted in this way primarily because its meaning as Jewish politics in the modern post-Shoah sense escapes it. This meaning lies in the fact that it is the embodiment of the rights of peoples, from the perspective of a unique people whose diasporic and minority structure requires protection and defense in terms of law, that is, on a level where universality and necessity come together. It is necessary to draw and impose that this conclusion, and no other, be drawn from the experience of the Shoah.
The antisemitism of October 7 has therefore shown us what is slipping away from under our feet today, here and there. These are two sides of the same coin, two facets of the same overall situation. For it must be said that while this deleterious development has marked Israeli policy—since well before October 7 and the war in Gaza— it is also because the global situation has changed considerably, and liberal democracies find themselves on the defensive in the face of the nationalist regressions affecting them and the saturation of the international arena, which is dominated by the unabashed assertion of power politics. That Israel conforms to the requirements of such a reconfigured world is not in itself inexplicable or unjustifiable, as long as the attitude is one of realism, in a regional context of overt or covert hostility, where existential threats in the strict sense—for a country that, although militarily strong, is nonetheless much smaller than all its neighbors and cannot lower its guard at any moment—are very real. Of course, we are neither in 1967 nor in 1973. But in 2025, speaking the language of law requires a redoubled effort, which the current state of inter-state relations exposes to accusations of irenicism.
And yet, for Israel in particular, there is no other option. There is none, at least, if its Jewish identity continues to be its foundation; its modern Jewish identity (i.e., Zionist), shaped in the post-Shoah world where its two pillars—the resurgent diaspora and the realization of Zionism—had been established, and where the legitimacy of the diptych reigned in the Western consciousness, beginning—because everything had to begin there—with the European consciousness. However, what October 7 revealed was the other side of the crisis: the fact that Europe is embarrassed about itself. That it no longer understands, or only in flashes, what October 7 was all about, both here and there. Antisemitism—that of the October 7 pogrom, along with the murders of Jews in recent years in Europe, which is being revived before our very eyes and seems unstoppable—it sees only through a thick fog. The usual detractors of the “instrumentalization of antisemitism” (which does indeed exist, but which does not affect the reality of antisemitism, which is by no means “residual” since it is a growing dimension of the common experience) actively contribute to this, it is true. But they are ultimately only the most vocal signs of the general crisis, which consists not so much in the wavering of Israel’s political and historical significance as in that of Europe.
Some countries have understood this better than others. Germany, of course. Spain, at no point. France hesitated, then, as the pressure became too strong, as the war in Gaza seemed likely to be detached from October 7, and as the anti-colonial camp increased its credibility, it recognized that it was better to write off October 7. Of course, the horror it had represented was ritually recalled. Certainly, the hostages were mentioned. But other very real and very visible horrors, largely the result of a power policy conducted in the name of the Jews and unworthy of what it claims to represent, pushed into oblivion the self-analysis that should have been made about actual antisemitism, here and there, and the rejection of Israel’s very existence, which has now become the rallying cry.
The third position, which I have called European in the strict sense, brings together liberal and socialist voices. It is highly dependent on the health of social democracy, which is currently in a poor state in Europe and elsewhere. Therefore, compared to the other two, this position on October 7 is de facto a minority one. This is because the other two are based on rising political dynamics and are winning over many minds for whom current developments are difficult to decipher. Nationalism is on the rise, legitimizing power politics and trampling on the logic of rights. When it claims to fight antisemitism and defend Jews, it reactivates a pre-modern mode of protection that has never been a salvation for Jews. Jewish reactionaries, by betting on it, are making a serious historical and strategic mistake. True Zionism was born out of this realization, and it was only when Europe understood that it had to support its statehood in order to save itself that a more stable model—despite and through the wars that Israel has had to constantly wage for its survival—was built in the Jewish consciousness in general, including in Israel and the diaspora.
The proponents of the third position are, in essence, nothing more than a certain type of European. They are attached to a certain way of defending the liberal and socialist (progressive in the broad sense) tendencies that are at the heart of the common political project that was revived after 1945.
The problem is that we are no longer there. Nationalism—both religious and non-religious—has grown in Israel, distancing it from the diaspora and, as a result, from its Jewish structure. Anti-Europeanism has grown in Europe itself, which has had the effect of allowing antisemitism to rise and even fuel it. This trend has generally played on two strings: reactionary, xenophobic nationalism, which is more racist than antisemitic, at least on the surface; and anti-colonial left-wing radicalism, hostile to any process of egalitarian and emancipatory socialization within European national frameworks. The floating fringes of public opinion clearly see the problem, but when it comes to October 7 and Gaza, they are drawn to one position or the other. As a result, the third position is greatly weakened, riddled with tensions that it must manage if it hopes to grow stronger. For today, two years later, it must take the extremely difficult step of returning to Gaza and October 7 to demonstrate that it is in the name of the antisemitic meaning of October 7 that what happened during the war in Gaza must be denounced and condemned. That remembering October 7 with accuracy and integrity is the only way to properly address, in a critical but not regressive manner, the destruction of Gaza. That it is in this way that crimes, all crimes, must be punished when the war has ended and the facts can be clearly established, with accusations made with restraint and objectivity. But this cannot be done without Europe regaining its own voice, that of a consistent political entity doubly nourished—but not in the same way or by the same modes of thought—by its post-Shoah memory and its post-colonial memory, and thus better able than any other body to defend law and justice on the world stage.
Bruno Karsenti
