in France, families and friends torn apart by the import of the conflict between Hamas and Israel

Dialogue is impossible. The Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 then the response of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip hysterized discussions in France. On the political scene but also in the more intimate sphere, between friends, family, couples, at work… many French people, Jewish or not, Muslim or not, struggle to get along for the simple reason that they think differently.

Juliette*, 28 years old, lives in Marseille with her partner. She is not Jewish, he is not Muslim. Neither has a direct link to the conflict in the Middle East. In private they never had an argument, the first happened a few weeks ago when Juliette denounced the atrocities of October 7: “Very quickly I realized that his speech was to put Hamas’ actions into perspective by justifying them with Israel’s colonization policy. The tone rose, I realized that it was a taboo subject. Since then, when we watch the television news, every time there is a report on the subject, I no longer dare to talk about it even though I am obviously also shocked by what is happening to civilians in Gaza. The two are not incompatible . Now there is a climate of embarrassment, I have forbidden myself to talk about it.”

In Paris, Pierre*, of Jewish faith, shared his grief on social networks after the terrorist attack. He specifies that Israel had not yet responded: “I posted pacifist and absolutely not political stories. I didn’t think it was something particularly divisive and I received a message in the night from one of my oldest friends. One mind-blowing message, two -one hundred lines asking me how I could condone the actions of the Israeli government when nothing in what I had shared was related to that.” Since the dialogue has been broken: “I gave her an answer and it was the only one because you don’t want to interact with people who have super strong ideas when they don’t know anything about it. This girl doesn’t know the region, She has never been to Israel. At no time did she ask me if my family was okay, it hurt me a lot because it creates distance with people who don’t understand how we feel. “

This pain, the writer and philosopher Raphaël Enthoven describes it in a message posted on X (ex-Twitter) Tuesday, December 5: “How many friendships shattered by this atrocious conflict? How many chosen brothers suddenly found themselves at odds with each other? So far, so quickly… No matter how much we believe we make the difference between politics and life, and telling ourselves that only idiots get angry because they think differently, we end up, like everyone else, turning our backs on people we adore, because their words are unbearable to us.. . As if there were a disagreement so profound that it involves the whole of life. An alternative whose terms are absolutely exclusive of each other. As if we only had the choice between two discourses which mobilize the heart and sever the affection. What remains are two enemies who do not want to fight and avoid each other because they still love each other, whatever they know, both of them, that everything is over between them.”

This is also what Valentin, 22, a non-practicing Jew who lives in Nice, describes: “We realize that we can share a lot of values ​​with certain people but many things are swept aside in the name of a certain ideological fight. I find that sad. It affects everyone because we have origins, different cultures, that’s what makes France rich, but we see that sometimes we can’t put that aside.” Valentin also feels this discomfort in a more global atmosphere: “Even in the street, as soon as you hear the words ‘Israel’, ‘Hamas’ or ‘Palestine’ come out of someone’s mouth there is always a look of suspicion.” According to him, misinformation is responsible for a large part of the problem.

“Many people confuse Jews and Israel, or Hamas and Palestine. Many stay on the surface of the conflict, make shortcuts. This creates hatred and that is what is dangerous.”

In Lyon, Rosa*, an atheist, cannot understand the reaction of one of her colleagues, a non-practicing Jew: “Relations have become complicated, he says that the events have made him mad, that he is angry with the whole world. At work we are neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestine, we are not politicized at all. In my opinion, there are criticisms to be made on both sides and support to be had on both sides but for him it is impossible. We are trying to calm the situation but we cannot do it.” In the communications agency in which they work, the tone has risen several times despite the general desire to avoid debate.

Jo* lives in Marseille, of Jewish faith he was recently disappointed by the reflections of a friend to whom he was very close for a long time. A friend who is not directly concerned by the subject and who nevertheless expressed a strong anti-Israel opinion: “I didn’t want to talk about it with him at all, I shut myself down straight away.” A word of support, a thought for his concerned family would have been enough, explains Jo, but this was not the case and the friend in question was particularly acerbic: “I don’t blame him, but I no longer want to go and have fun with him when he doesn’t share my pain and is likely to say something horrible to me at any moment.”

“It’s visceral, it’s epidermal”

Emmanuel and Quentin, thirty-somethings, friends and work colleagues in Paris, were confronted with this impossibility of dialogue the day after the Hamas terrorist attack: “At the very beginning, it was very complicated, and anyway, Manu was wise enough to say, ‘We’re not talking about it’.” Then the words were released but for Emmanuel, a practicing Jew, the emotion was sometimes too strong: “For me this subject is not a topical subject, it is the subject of a life. Being Jewish, Israel, being Jewish in France. If I am so involved, it is because it makes part of me.” He tries to debate: “If we want to be listened to, we have to know how to concede things. Of course in our heads there is sometimes anger that comes into play, but unfortunately, on this subject, we do not have the right to be extreme I’m not one of the people who send insults in comments, what I say is constructed, it means something. It’s good to have a debate with people who don’t share your opinion, it’s important. But to debate with someone who has an opinion radically opposed to mine, when I give him a proven fact, he must respond with facts, knowingly.” So he sometimes just avoids the conversation.