The term “apartheid”, which many human rights organizations have adopted in recent months to describe the system of domination of the Palestinians put in place by Israel, has made its way into the National Assembly. Friday July 22, a motion for a resolutionco-signed by thirty-seven left-wing deputies, which condemns the “apartheid regime instituted by Israel against the Palestinian people”, has been made public.
The text accuses the Jewish state of having established a “system of oppression and systematic discrimination”, “with the intention of maintaining the dominance of one ethnic-national-racial group over another”which corresponds to the definition of the crime of apartheid, as it appears in the 1998 Rome Statute, which founded the International Criminal Court.
Resolutions are opinions, issued by one of the two Chambers of Parliament on a specific subject, which do not have the force of law. The text in question was drawn up on the initiative of the communist Jean-Paul Lecoq, vice-president of the foreign affairs committee. Most of the signatories (21 out of 37) are members of the French Communist Party (PCF), like Fabien Roussel, the party’s national secretary and former presidential candidate.
Ten members of La France insoumise, including Adrien Quatennens, lieutenant of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, also supported the proposal, as well as four ecologists and two socialists, without the text being officially labeled New Popular, Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), the left intergroup in the hemicycle. As evidenced by the reaction on Twitter by Jérôme Guedj, socialist deputy for Essonne, who believes that the 24 pages of the text “sweat the hatred of Israel”. “I am for the recognition of the State of Palestine, I have defended this position on several occasions and for a long time. But by using the term apartheid and wanting to legalize the boycott, there is a delegitimization of the State of Israel”specifies the elected official of the PS, joined by The world. “It is not the priority to put on the table a subject which can fracture the Nupes, he adds. If we want to continue the adventure, we must understand that we oblige each other. »
“Mask of anti-Zionism”
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France reacted by castigating an attempt to “delegitimize” the State of Israel. “This stigmatization is the reflection of an anti-Semitism that wears the mask of anti-Zionism”believes the organization for whom this contributes to “stirring up hatred” in France, “in defiance of the safety of French Jews”.
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