[Peace-discuss] It's the same here as it has been in France, and elsewhere.

[David Green]

2005 - Interview with Edgar Morin: "We have created a state of intimidation"
By Silvia Cattori <https://arretsurinfo.ch/authors/silvia-cattori/>
Stop on info - July 08, 2021
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It is with great joy that *Arrêt sur info
<https://arretsurinfo.ch/2005-entretien-avec-edgar-morin-on-a-cree-un-etat-dintimidation/>*
pays
tribute to Edgar Morin, who today celebrates his 100th birthday, July 8,
2021, by rebroadcasting an interview carried out in June 2005
<https://www.silviacattori.net/article134.html> by the independent Swiss
Italian journalist Silvia Cattori.

100 years is an anniversary that cannot be missed. Especially when it comes
to one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century: a sociologist
and philosopher, whose courses we took at the University of Lausanne have
left a deep impression on us. A very endearing personality whom, many years
later, we had the desire to interview in the context of the judgment of the
Court of Appeal of Versailles, rendered in May 2005, which condemned him
for racial defamation in one of its stands (*).



<https://arretsurinfo.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Edgar_Morin.jpg>

Image: Wikimedia Commons
------------------------------

*INTERVIEW WITH EDGAR MORIN*

*Edgar Morin, sociologist, has been involved in all fights for sixty years
(**). His words are lively and concise. It is not true that “anti-Semitism”
is back: according to him, this term is used to obscure Israeli repression,
to “Israelize” the Jews, to provide Israel with justifications for its
policies.*

*His positions in favor of the humiliated and offended Palestinians earned
Edgar Morin slander. From our meeting with him, we keep the impression of a
man of great simplicity and integrity. We would like to thank him for
granting us permission to publish this interview.*

Interview by Silvia Cattori in June 2005

------------------------------

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *You were convicted of "racial defamation" [1] for
having criticized Israel. Can you tell us what motivated your positions in
this conflict?*

*Edgar Morin*  : First of all, there is one thing that the unconditional
defenders of Israel do not understand, it is that one can be animated by
compassion for a people who are suffering. It is the continuous suffering
of Palestinians, subjected to humiliations, annoyances, destroyed houses,
torn trees, that animate me.

Obviously the articles that I write are not affective articles. I'm trying
to make diagnoses. The article "  Israel-Palestine: Cancer
<http://www.mleray.info/pages/israel-palestine-le-cancer-2931034.html> "
[2], which led to my blame, was conceived with this in mind. I had
previously written an article titled " *The Double Look* " [3], in which I
tried to understand the reasons given by the Israelis on the one hand, and
the reasons given by the Palestinians on the other. It is obvious that the
inequality is incredible.

I had also developed this reflection in a text, called " *The simple and
the complex* " [4], where I tried to see the two aspects of the conflict. I
was saying that there is an oppressor and an oppressed; that the Israeli
oppressor has formidable strength and the Palestinian oppressed has almost
no strength.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Can you explain what you mean by “the complex”?*

*Edgar Morin*  : The “complex” comes from the fact that the Jews of course
carry with them the memory of the persecutions undergone in the past; a
memory which is obviously fueled by the incessant reminder of Auschwitz,
which is called Shoah. It is also clear that as long as Israel's isolation
in this Middle Eastern world continues, as long as there is not a policy
which allows its integration, there is a threat just as radical as that
which weighed on the Frankish Kingdom, the Christian Kingdom of Saint-Jean
d'Acre.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *So you wanted to call Israel for more reason?*

*Edgar Morin*  : This article was written at one of the most intense and
violent times. It was 2002, during Sharon's military offensive. It was
Jenin's moment. A moment of great repression. Hence the need to intervene
and bear witness. I based my text on many direct testimonies. Besides, I
wanted to have it co-signed by Sami Nair, a French friend, himself of North
African origin, and by Danielle Sallenave who, herself, had gone to
Palestine.

It is obvious that with this text I wanted to establish a diagnosis and
give an alarm signal. So I thought about it, measured in its complexity. There
was a question I wanted to ask. How was it that two millennia of
persecution and humiliation had not served as an experience not to
humiliate others? How did it come about that Israel, itself the heir of
persecuted and humiliated Jews, persecutes and humiliates the Palestinians? It
is this historical paradox that I questioned and that I have been
criticized a lot - among others - in the pro-Israel camp. So this passage
provoked the fury of intellectuals like Finkielkraut.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *What was wrong?*

*Edgar Morin* : The conviction relates to two passages. [5] These passages,
taken out of their context, led the Court of Appeal to consider them as
racially defamatory; that magistrates and a public prosecutor arrive at the
conviction of the authors of the article and of the daily newspaper which
published it.
However, it is absolutely obvious that the article in question is neither
anti-Semitic, nor racial, nor racist. It is clearly stated that it is the
Jews of Israel, and not the Jews of rue des Rosiers or Brooklyn, who
persecute the Palestinians. It is also specified that it is not only the
Israeli occupier who arrives at such exactions, but any occupant in a
territory where he is not accepted.

However, the court did not accept as “incitement to terrorism” the passage
where I said that we had to try to understand why there were these human
bombs, called suicide bombers. I tried to give the psychological,
historical reasons, including the political intervention of Hamas; in
short, I am only trying to understand what is happening in the soul and the
spirit of these combatants and the conditions of despair and hatred which
animate them. Even if the court did not find them right on this passage,
these questions are perceived by those who accuse as an "apology for
terrorism". They don't even want us to try to figure out why people
sacrifice their lives like this!

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Everything that is happening on this subject is
incomprehensible to most people!*

*Edgar Morin*: It happens that, for a large part of the Israelis - and
perhaps a large part of the Jews who are here in France in the hands of the
CRIF [6], of these so-called community organizations - there is a a sort of
Judeo-centrism, a phenomenon of war hysteria: the enemy is shown from a
diabolical angle and oneself one always believes to be right. It happens
that, although in France we are not at war, there is this state of mind
which makes them see anti-Semitism in any criticism of Israel. Now it is
obvious that one can, with perverse arguments, insinuate that all those who
criticize Israel - which is a state which declares itself Jewish, which
claims to be Jewish, and which claims to represent all Jews - become
anti-Semites. It's kind of a vicious circle. I believe that in addition, to
stir up an imaginary anti-Semitism,

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Isn't Israel strong enough like that?*

*Edgar Morin*  : Israel only exists because there was anti-Semitism, the
culmination of which was Nazi anti-Semitism. Despite its heterogeneity,
Israel initially felt vitally threatened by its Arab neighbors. But since
1967, where he is in the position of the strongest State, he needs to
camouflage this situation of domination by that of victim. Hence the return
to Auschwitz and the incessant reminders of the past martyrdom. Consequently,
Israel is led to awaken the idea that in countries where there are many
Jews, the “gentiles” (non-Jews) are fundamentally or potentially
anti-Semites. This amounts to saying to the Jews "you are not at home in
France, at home it is Israel".
In other words, anti-Semitism feeds in a certain way a policy which,
instead of seeking good understanding and peace, seeks the solution in the
annexations of new lands. In short, this is the context in which the
phenomenon of “anti-Semitism” and its instrumentalization must be situated.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *So if I understand correctly you are saying that
there are people who poison the debate to defend the indefensible?*

*Edgar Morin*  : After the publication of my article there were of course
many messages of understanding and recognition by those who understood this
complex vision; but there were also insults and insults. A very educated
woman, engineer, said to me "but sir what are you talking about!" Jerusalem
has been ours for three thousand years! As if it was historical evidence
that Jerusalem had been eternally Jewish.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Isn't this determination to silence any criticism
that embarrasses Israel harmful?*

*Edgar Morin*  : The idea of those who slander me is to send the message
that, although of Jewish origin, I can be anti-Semitic. They advance the
*“self-hatred”* argument  . Because, indeed, certain Jews, in particular in
Germany before the Second World War, feeling perfectly at ease in the
German culture, felt an embarrassment to have this motley, heterogeneous
thing, which was their origin. .

But to come to accuse me of  *"self-hatred"* is absolutely ridiculous! This
is all absolutely ludicrous. These Jewish organizations that are suing me -
Lawyers Without Borders, France-Israel - have already sued other people a
lot. The first case they did not lose is the appeal case where I am
involved and where, I believe, it is on the instruction of the Ministry of
Justice, as part of this extreme vigilance on anti-Semitism , that the
prosecution took the floor during the trial - which it never does in this
kind of trial - to say that there were two passages which should be
considered as racial defamation. This is the context.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Do you intend to respond to slander?*

*Edgar Morin*  : I intend to publish all the articles that I have written
on this question, under the title perhaps: “Racist and anti-Semitic
writings” so that at least the readers can see what it is about. Because it
is true that it is very difficult to understand what is happening in
Israel-Palestine.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Which amounts to saying that as long as the rights of
the strongest obscure the rights of the weakest, it is this unidimensional
vision that will prevail.*

*Edgar Morin*  : We saw destroyed houses on television, we saw tanks shoot
at children; but what you cannot see on television is the daily humiliation
done to those Palestinians who show up at checkpoints, to these old people
who are made to undress in front of their children. It is for this horrible
contempt that I wanted to give an account; of this dreadful contempt,
especially shown by these young IDF soldiers, perhaps not all of them; there
is still a small minority who will help the Palestinians to rebuild
destroyed houses.
This humiliation is not seen outside; it is those who go there who have
noticed it. This is why many people fail to understand the daily situation
of the Palestinians.

Moreover, it is clear to me that all these trials have always been wanted
in order to make Israeli and American opinion believe that France is
anti-Semitic. And then when these organizations lose the cases, they spread
the idea that the judges are also anti-Semites. So they win from that point
of view. And by that very fact they scare, they intimidate.
However, if there is a surge of racism, it is on the Palestinians that it
is manifested.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *But when will this intimidation stop?*

*Edgar Morin* : A lot of people say to me "but you can write these things
because you are of Jewish origin but we would not dare, we are afraid, we
would immediately be called anti-Semite" . So, this fear of being called an
anti-Semite every time we want to exercise an act of free criticism,
creates a poisoned climate.
That is why I believe that the judgment handed down by the court the other
day - judgment which condemns me - will further exacerbate this climate and
make it more and more difficult to criticize Israel and, in a sense,
freedom to expression. Not to mention the fact that this kind of discredit,
outrage, done to people, including myself, who have fought all their lives
against all forms of discrimination, is iniquitous as well as grotesque.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Did this unfortunate experience make you discover a
reality that you did not recognize? That there is, in France, a way of
takeover based on intimidation and demonization that ruins lives?*

*Edgar Morin*  : Are you talking about people who lost the cases?

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *I am referring to cases where even when cases are won
they are followed by appeals.*

*Edgar Morin*  : I knew this reality very well. I know the journalist
Daniel Mermet who was also prosecuted. I know that so far they have lost
all lawsuits. The only time they've won is with our article.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *It is understandable that uninformed people can be
shaken by your argument. But when an informed person, like Alain
Finkielkraut for example, affirms to be seized with “terror” [7] while
reading you, one does not know any more what to think !?*

*Edgar Morin*  : It's a well-known phenomenon. There is a closure from the
moment the pro-Israelis feel that it is Israel the victim, and that it is
the Palestinians the culprits who want Israel killed, which justifies all
this repression against them. .

>From the moment they get the impression that when the press shows images of
Israeli tanks, it is a one-sided, pro-Palestinian press, and that any
information that talks about the suffering of the Palestinians is
pro-Palestinian. -palestinian, therefore tendentious, we enter into a
totally closed concept.

When you are dealing with a closed group that is convinced that it has
justice on its side, it allows itself the right to say and do anything. It
is the same with the "terrorist" groups that Israel fights. The fact is
that there, with this conflict, an always self-justified Jewish nationalism
and chauvinism was created; in the rest of the public opinion one is afraid
to pass for anti-Semitic because of the past centuries of anti-Semitism. The
just guilt of anti-Semitism paralyzes the just criticism of Israel.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Can we conclude that supporting Israel is the wrong
fight? That justice would like all Israelis and all the Jews of the world
to unite to demand from the Israeli government an end to the abuses?*

*Edgar Morin*  : There is a minority of Jews who are fighting in that
direction. And even, I can tell you that in Israel, one can write things
which, here, would bring us lawsuits. Rabbi Leibowitz said that Israel was
becoming a "Judeo-Nazi state". But here in France, under my signature, we
would go to trial. We have created in some minds a state of intimidation
and psychological terror.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Intellectuals and activists of the Jewish faith were
generally at the forefront of the struggle for freedoms. However, many of
them - most often from Trotskyism or Communism - today practice a kind of
McCarthyism. They are immediately ready to designate “anti-Semites”
[8]; this in a completely arbitrary manner and to speak, finally, with the
same voice as those Jewish institutions whose accusation of anti-Semitism,
followed by lawsuits, is the specialty. Strange reversal, isn't it?*

*Edgar Morin*  : The ones you are talking about were not of the Jewish
faith. They were not religious. They were of Jewish origin, but they had
become internationalists, universalists. However, from the moment when many
of these militants - who were Trotskyists, Maoists, Communists - lost their
faith, there was a crisis in them and they found a reason to hope by
clinging to Israel. . This was the case with Benny Levi, the former Maoist
leader; this was the case of Annie Kriegel, ex-Stalinist. You have a return
to this identity which becomes closed.

Unique to Jews in the Western world, once they accepted their status as
citizens, they were part of the nation; they were no longer part of a
dispersed Jewish people; they were no longer part of a Jewish state that no
longer existed. Many of them no longer had any ties to religion even though
they sometimes went to synagogue out of respect for their families. So the
three elements that formed Jewish identity before the diaspora, "a nation,
a people, a religion", had disappeared. The Jews, who thus quite naturally
entered the world of the "Gentiles", saw very well the danger which narrow
nationalism posed for them. They therefore had universalist tendencies; they
were Europeanists, they were globalists, they were internationalists.

But from the creation of the Jewish state, and especially from the
seventies, many Jews from the outside world felt solidarity with Israel,
linked to this state by a double fidelity; which can very well be
understood. The Communists themselves were French and at the same time in
solidarity with the Soviet Union. You have a state. You have a people.
Moreover,
many Jewish youth organizations say “one people in two nations”. We
reconstituted the idea of a Jewish people. And the secularized Jews began
to read the Bible, the Talmud. There has been a return to religion. So the
three components of ancient Jewish identity have been resuscitated. And
when we are in such a component, and in a situation of war, we begin to
hate the enemy and all those who alter the beautiful image of oneself.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *What image?*

*Edgar Morin*  : It was the sabra, it was the man who colonized the land,
it was the myth of a people "without land for a land without people" who
made flowers grow in the desert, it was a people of heroic fighters; there
was this wonderful image of the Jew that had eliminated the image of the
fearful little ghetto Jew.

And when, a little later, we realize that these same people are sending
missiles to liquidate Hamas militants, real or supposed, destroy towns -
like Jenin in 2002 - are doing all these repressive military operations, it
touches the self-image " ; the image of many Jews who cannot recognize
themselves in this image. The image in which they recognize themselves is,
I am the martyr of Auschwitz, I am the handsome Israeli who fertilizes the
land. So. So when this "self" image is altered in such a dramatic way, they
also come to hate anyone who, through criticism of Israel, destroys the
"self" image.

Why for a long time “they” did not want to call the Palestinians the
Palestinians? Because they were Arabs! Even Golda Meir said of them that
they were "beasts". They did not even want to give them an identity. It was
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO,) with Arafat, which ended up
making the world recognize the notion of Palestinian and ended up having it
recognized in extremis by the Israeli government.

Remain that the idea that the Palestinians can exist in a land which was
supposedly "without people" is an idea which offends them; Palestinians are
seen as parasites. So this is how it all came into being. Unfortunately all
of this - which is understandable - is quite lamentable.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Didn't the political authorities in Europe favor this
deleterious climate?*

*Edgar Morin*  : I believe that these campaigns, led by the CRIF and a few
other community organizations, made the government and the authorities
almost capitulate. By saying that they were fighting racism, they mainly
wanted to fight anti-Semitism. They forgot about other racisms, and not
just against Arabs, but Gypsies, etc.
I believe that it is also the political importance of the Jewish minority
in France - there is indeed an Islamic minority which is larger in number
but less influential politically - which leads the government to more or
less meet its wishes. CRIF officials even allowed themselves to criticize
France's international policy without the government having anything to say.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *This submission can only encourage these campaigns?*

*Edgar Morin*  : Yes. They feel encouraged by so much attention. And to
ensure that the commemoration of Auschwitz is focused only on the Jews,
when we know full well that there were other victims as well. And that
among the victims of Nazi repression there were about two and a half
million Soviet prisoners of war who died in the camps. We know that the
repression was primarily focused on the Jews; but it also focused on the
Gypsies, on the mentally deficient. We know that this repression would have
hit the Slavs massively too, if Hitler had won the war.

All of this, which was similarly focused on the Jews - as if they were
humanity's sole victims - caused shock in return. The blacks ended up
saying "What about us, and five centuries of slavery and the slave trade?" "And
the Algerians" And the war in Algeria, and what the French did to us. "

I think it is quite right that all those who have suffered from what we can
call European barbarism, are now saying "We must not be forgotten!" It's
not just Jews in the world ”!

I think they (the Jewish institutions) have gone too far. It is true that
at the beginning, when there was the liberation of the camps, we only spoke
of political deportees; we did not specifically speak of the Jews. It
should be noted that in France there were more political deportees than
Jewish deportees. This was due to the fact that part of the French
population had hidden Jews. France with Bulgaria - while in other countries
there were 60 to 80% Jewish victims - is the country where among the
deportees, the Jews were in fewer numbers because many good people hid and
protected Jews in the cities and the countryside.

In France, at the end of the war, we mainly talked about returning
political deportees, but we had not talked about the Jews in particular. But
now we've gone to the other extreme. We forget all the other
deportees. However,
all these excesses are part of a political vision in which the Jews can
only be heroes or victims. And if we undermine this double image, then we
are a bastard.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Don't you nostalgia for a time when Jews and non-Jews
were free from particularisms? We're right there right now. Any “goyim” can
be suspected of “anti-Semitism”.*

*Edgar Morin*  : Yes. This brings us back to what for centuries any Jew
could be a suspect. And that every Jew had the disturbing strangeness. And
now for the Jews any “goyim” can be suspect, that's for sure; there is a
reversal.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Doesn't being sentenced seem to upset you too much?*

*Edgar Morin* : No, I'm just being slandered. It has happened to me to be
slandered or marginalized for other reasons. No, besides, I will resist
that. I will publish all the articles I have done on this issue. I will
intervene where I am asked to intervene.

It seems that there has been a debate at the Sorbonne these days. Monsieur
Roire, a journalist from Le Figaro, asked how I was "anti-Semitic" since I
was a Jew; and Mr. Barnavi, ex Ambassador of Israel, would have said that
my article is one-sided, that it was quite astonishing that an author who
claims to be a philosopher of complexity, writes an article that is worth
nothing at all, but that 'he was not in favor of taking these cases to
court.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Did you have a dialogue with the leaders of the
associations which are at the origin of your conviction?*

*Edgar Morin*  : No, I never spoke with them, no; or rather, they never had
a dialogue with me.

*Silvia Cattori*  :  *Supporting Israel, wanting to punish perfectly
honorable people, is that to the advantage of these institutions?*

*Edgar Morin*  : No, it is not to their advantage in France, but it has an
advantage on the international, American level. They need to cry out
anti-Semitism, to say that anti-Semitism is unfolding. All of this serves
to justify Israel. What they do is strategically well designed.

*Silvia Cattori*  : Thank you.

[1] The association "France-Israël Géneral-Koenig" and "Avocats sans
frontières" (chaired by Gilles-Williams Goldnadel) sued Edgar Morin in 2002
after the publication of the article "  Israel-Palestine: cancer
<http://www.mleray.info/pages/israel-palestine-le-cancer-2931034.html>
 »Published
in June 2002 in the free column of the daily Le Monde.

[2] Edgar Morin, Danielle Sallenave and Sami Naïr, co -
<http://www.mleray.info/pages/israel-palestine-le-cancer-2931034.html> signed
“  Israel-Palestine: cancer
<http://www.mleray.info/pages/israel-palestine-le-cancer-2931034.html>  ”. They
were convicted on appeal by the Court of Versailles on May 27, 2005, while
the Tribunal de grande instance of Nanterre had acquitted them in May 2004.

[3] "Israel-Palestine: The Double Look". Liberation, September 11, 1997.

[4] "The Simple and the Complex". Le Monde, February 2, 2001.

[5] The first incriminated passage “It is hard to imagine that a nation of
fugitives, from the longest persecuted people in the history of mankind,
having suffered the worst *humiliations* and the worst contempt, is capable
of transform in two generations into a domineering and self-confident
people and, with the exception of an admirable minority, into a
contemptuous people having satisfaction in humiliating ”. The second
incriminated passage: "The Jews who were victims of a ruthless order impose
their ruthless order on the Palestinians."

[6] Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France.

[7] Alain Finkielkraut: “Between Mel Gibson and Edgar Morin”. L'Arche, May
2004.

[8] *Ras l'Front* , the Proche-Orient Info site, SOS Racisme among others.

*(*) Edgar Morin's conviction was overturned on July 12 by the Court of
Cassation <https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/carnet/2006-07-20-Morin>*

*(**) Edgar Morin, born in 1921, emeritus researcher at the National Center
for Scientific Research (CNRS), director of the section of human and social
sciences (CETHSAH), is still in full swing.*



On Fri, Jul 9, 2021 at 11:35 PM Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> I wish I could have the patience and time to translate this interview with
> Edgar Morin. On the chance you could read it, here it is, in French.
>
>
> https://arretsurinfo.ch/2005-entretien-avec-edgar-morin-on-a-cree-un-etat-dintimidation/
>
> One of the best analyses of the phenomenon of faux antisemitism that I
> have encountered. Edgar Morin just had his 100th birthday, a Jew who was
> condemed for his antisemitism (later exonerated) in France.
>
> Mort
>
>
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