Franco-Israeli, Julien Bahloul was a journalist at I24 News. In the past, the author also served as a reservist in the IDF Spokesman's Unit. Now a business development manager at an Israeli high-tech company in Tel Aviv, he regularly analyzes Israeli news on Twitter and in several French media.
I was on the Israeli peace side. Now I am in the only camp left in Israel: the mourning camp. Saturday, November 4, marked the 28th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on the sidelines of a peace demonstration. A Jewish fundamentalist shot him several times in the back in protest at the territorial compromises granted to the Palestinians. Until recently, a large rally of the left took place on this date.
"No to violence - Yes to peace" reads the banners I photographed in 2011. We met every year. I didn't miss the event for anything in the world. Even before I emigrated to Israel, I followed the speeches from afar, I watched the images of the crowd en masse. We were proud to be there. To dream together of a possible peace with our Palestinian neighbors. We applauded the speeches that gave us so much hope, and we ended the rally by singing "Shir LaShalom," "The Song of Peace," which Yithzak Rabin had sung minutes before he was killed on November 4, 1995.
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Don't look back. Let go of those who have left. Keep your eyes on hope. Sing a love song, not a war song. Don't say "a day will come", make that day come. Don't whisper a prayer, sing a song for peace.
»November 2023. Due to the war, no peace rally is taking place this year. In a sad twist, Rabin Square is inaccessible. It has become a huge construction site for the future tram station.
How can we expect the children of Gaza who grew up under Islamist rule and survived countless battles with Israel to dream of peace with us?
Julien Bahloul
It's not just the square that has become inaccessible, but the future we've been dreaming of. The October 7 pogrom was led by the Islamists of Hamas. But we cannot ignore the fact that many civilians participated in the massacres.
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Ordinary Gazans, teenagers, young people, civilians, have also entered our homes. They participated in looting and violence. They had hatred in their eyes." I heard this testimony from the mouth of a survivor of the massacres. She survived the pogrom and saw one of her relatives kidnapped.
His words don't get out of my head. The thought that a mob of teenagers could have thrown themselves like barbarians at civilians in the same way that some people throw themselves at products on sale haunts me.
The attacks are not a new element in the Israeli reality. But we still had hope that they were the work of fanatics, that they did not represent Palestinian society. We preferred not to see what we knew: anti-Semitic hate education in the Palestinian territories. Under the Islamist dictatorship in Gaza, of course, but also in the textbooks of the Palestinian Authority. This education blew up in our face a month ago.
Today, there is still grief and questions.
How can we expect the children of Gaza who grew up under Islamist rule and survived countless battles with Israel to dream of peace with us? For the most part, the only glimpse they have of their neighbors is the bombings. The Gazan child doesn't care that Hamas is responsible for the war. He only sees the terrible consequences of which he is a victim.
I hear in the media that the "Israeli peace camp" has disappeared. It's true. But if you look hard enough, you'll be able to find it. It is beneath the corpses of the inhabitants of kibbutz Beeri and Kfar Aza, idealistic families who dreamed of coexistence with Gaza.
Julien Bahloul
Who, in the aftermath of the war in Israel, will have the heart to come and sing with conviction The Song of Peace? Not many people. Polls published in recent days show that in the event of an election Netanyahu would suffer a terrible setback, but the left would not emerge stronger.
I hear in the media that the "Israeli peace camp" has disappeared. It's true. But if you look hard enough, you'll be able to find it.
It is beneath the corpses of the inhabitants of kibbutz Beeri and Kfar Aza, idealistic families who dreamed of coexistence with Gaza.
It is beneath the 260 mutilated bodies of young people at the Nova music festival, who danced and dreamed of a peaceful world.
It is in the ashes of families burned alive trying to protect their children.
The Israeli peace camp has not disappeared. He was murdered by the Islamists.