It is an anecdote often told by Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus at Sciences Po Paris. The scene takes place in the middle of the “yellow vest” crisis. He is having a coffee on a Parisian terrace when suddenly a procession of protesters dressed in the famous fluorescent life jacket passes by. In the procession, the retired political science professor sees a Palestinian flag. He runs and approaches the woman who is brandishing it. He asks her why. “Because they are like us, they suffer”responds substantially.
This scene, which takes place long before October 7, 2023, reveals just how powerful the symbols of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are. That of the weak against the strong, of David against Goliath: the biblical imagination is never far away in the confrontation for a land that saw the birth of the three great monotheisms: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in order of importance. appearance over time. War of religions? Of historical, territorial or even moral legitimacy? All dimensions are entangled in what is about to become the “Hundred Years War” of modern times. A multidimensional conflict whose echoes resonate from the United Nations to the most intimate of individuals, a conflict that crosses and tears the international community, societies – particularly the French one, in suspense in this regard – but also the communities, families, people. It is a conflict of mirrors in which each person projects their vision of the world, their convictions, their values, their deepest beliefs.
Do we need more evidence of the interest in what happens between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? The comic strip by researcher Vincent Lemire and Christophe Gaultier titled History of Jerusalem (Les Arènes, 2022) has just surpassed 300,000 sales. This phenomenon, although it began before the Hamas attack on Israel, has grown since then, in particular thanks to the always incisive, fair and balanced media interventions of Vincent Lemire. He himself published, with Thomas Snégaroff, an educational work, Israel/Palestine. Anatomy of a conflict (Les Arènes, 136 pages, 17 euros): released in April, the work has already sold more than 30,000 copies. More than passion, this editorial enthusiasm reveals a thirst for knowledge, a need to understand an antagonistic situation often perceived by the general public as complex and, above all, insoluble.
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