“After what happened yesterday, you will understand that you can no longer stay at home. » The day after an eruptive family conversation about the war between Israel and Hamas, Karim (at his request, his first name has been changed) saw this message from his father appear on his cell phone while he was at work. Born to a European father and a Moroccan mother, this young practicing Muslim had to move in with his girlfriend, “saddened” that his mother has ” dark “. Since October 7, the atmosphere within the family has gradually become tense, hanging over the fate of a Gazan family, long supported by Karim’s mother.
While the Israeli army carried out its first bombings on Gaza, in response to the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas, it received this message from one of the Palestinian children it sponsors: “If I ever die, know that I will never forgive them. » Since then, in the absence of news, she has taken refuge “in anger and hatred” against Israel.
“In her interests, in her relationship to politics, she lives everything through this conflict, like so many Muslims in the world”, relates his son, who grew up in a kitchen decorated with a map of the Middle East, where Palestine is indicated in Arabic. Having become an adult, this 25-year-old computer scientist no longer shares the maternal need to “put your energy and your soul” in this war, imprint “the narrative of good versus evil” and which today results, according to him, in a situation “just desperate”.
The red line is crossed
But as October passed, Karim had to position himself, exposed to a continuous flow of messages from his mother on WhatsApp. Although he has always known his opposition to the State of Israel, the origin, according to her, of “too many misfortunes for Muslims”, it is the anti-Semitic remarks that he detects in the content thus shared that make him react. One of the videos relayed by his mother described the Shoah as “blatant lie”. One evening, when he comes home exhausted from work, Karim explodes: “I told her that I could show these videos to the police, that these opinions she relayed were serious and even punishable by law. »
The tone rises, his mother crosses the red line and insults her son’s best friend. This young Franco-Israeli, whom she has known for years, becomes in her mouth the ” partner in crime “ and the ” dog “ of the Israeli army. Karim remains stunned: these comments are, in his eyes, unforgivable and unfair towards his best friend, who returned from Israel, revolted by the political orientation of the Netanyahu government and determined not to return there to fight Hamas. Hurt by the insult done to him ” brother “Karim is indignant at the“amalgam” thus established by his mother: “It’s dishonest, especially for a Muslim woman: we can’t do to others what we don’t want them to do to us. »
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