Alongside the release of his latest essay, Israel. The agony of a democracyjournalist Charles Enderlin, former correspondent in Jerusalem for the public television channel France 2, returns to The duty on the rise of Hamas, an Islamist organization aided and supported by the Hebrew state to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.
The Hamas attack on October 7 is unprecedented in the annals of Israeli history. For the first time since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948, areas of its territory were occupied by the enemy and people massacred (more than 1,200 victims) by armed commandos of the fundamentalist organization.
“Before the attack, the Israelis had their eyes on the West Bank,” Charles Enderlin said in an interview. “IDF [acronyme de l’armée israélienne] was very sparsely deployed along the border with the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank there were dozens of battalions stationed. »
The shock of October 7 was terrible for Israeli society, maintains the journalist, who speaks of a feeling of “stunning”. Among the dead, including hundreds of civilians, the authorities still count 200 hostages held in Gaza and between 100 and 200 missing people. “The failure is immense for the intelligence services, and the government will soon have to assume its responsibility. »
For Enderlin, who lives in Jerusalem, the vision that the Israeli authorities had of Hamas was until now that of a religious organization which was satisfied with the situation, which notably made it possible to authorize Palestinian workers from the enclave to go to work in Israel. A tacit understanding which has made it possible to reduce the pressure over the years, believes the journalist.
“The Israelis did not foresee the worst-case scenario facing Gaza,” adds Mr. Enderlin. “This is Israel’s first major military defeat, and Hamas probably expected the authorities’ reaction to be immediate. »
The massive bombings and the Israeli army’s ground operation that followed have since left the Gaza Strip ablaze. “Yes, Israel embarked on this war. There are a very large number of civilian victims, the exact figures for which we will have after the conflict. Hamas refuses to give access to the tunnels to the population to protect themselves. In the meantime, the Palestinian drama continues with greater magnitude. »
In terms of terrorist acts, the region has experienced its share of tragedies, underlines the journalist. Already in the 1940s, the leader of the Zionist paramilitary group Lehi, Yitzhak Shamir, recruited young people to fight against the British by explaining to them that the weapon of combat was terrorism. “With Hamas, there was the period of terrible suicide attacks in the early 2000s. The Israelis sometimes responded with bombings or operations to neutralize this or that leader of the organization. »
The withdrawal of settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, decided unilaterally by Ariel Sharon, was a turning point, believes Mr. Enderlin. The international community welcomed the initiative, seeing it as a step towards peace. “But, in fact, the prime minister did not want a two-state solution, so he gave Gaza to Hamas, because he knew that any political agreement is impossible with the Islamist organization. »
The specialist also explains that he has already well documented in his work The great blindness. Israel and the irresistible rise of radical Islam the way in which the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, the development of colonization in the Palestinian territories and American policy in the Middle East have made way for fundamentalist Islamists.
“In order to counter the PLO [Organisation de libération de la Palestine], Israeli governments encouraged the development of the organization founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a member in Gaza of the most extremist branch of the Muslim Brotherhood religious brotherhood. Which, in my opinion, was an absolute mistake, and we are now seeing the terrible consequences. »
Weakening of the rule of law, rise of radical Islamism
A great connoisseur of the tensions and disasters that have reigned in the Middle East for decades, the Franco-Israeli continues to observe the upheavals in the region with a critical eye in the face of the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter has held the position of head of government since March 2009. “At the head of the nation reigns the most right-wing and most religious government that the country has known,” says Mr. Enderlin. “The Israeli far right, Jewish religious fundamentalists and their alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu have not only weakened the rule of law, they have also participated in the rise of radical Islamism, particularly in the Gaza strip. »
The one who is also signing these days an update of his work published in 2013 In the name of the Temple (Éditions du Seuil), on the Jewish messianic current, recalls that religious nationalist groups have long remained marginal in Israel. But in recent years, they have nevertheless succeeded in spreading their ideas to the upper echelons of society, which has endangered democratic institutions.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is inhabited, according to the journalist, by a sort of messianic vision of himself, passed in 2018 the law “Israel nation-state of the Jewish people”, a violent ideological break with the secular principles of State of Israel, he specifies. “There was a start from a large part of the population. Until October 7, every Saturday evening, hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. It was a large pro-democracy movement that came together against the establishment of the totalitarian and illiberal regime that Netanyahu and his government are trying to put in place. »
According to Mr. Enderlin, the Israeli Prime Minister is the worthy heir of a policy led by the nationalist right and messianic fundamentalists of annexation of the West Bank after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 by a Jewish extremist and the abortion of the Oslo process in 1998. “Benjamin Netanyahu thinks that peace is impossible. It is fundamentally unfavorable to the establishment of a Palestinian state. For him, Jews will always be threatened, whatever they do. What is particular is that his thinking inspired by his father, the historian Bension [Nétanyahou], finds its origins in neofascist theories. »