Raphaël Enthoven explains the vocabulary of intellectual failure

Raphaël Enthoven is a rare exception in French intellectual debate. Since 7 October 2023, the Parisian philosopher and essayist has been vigorously fighting against the semantic and conceptual distortion whose sole aim is to demonise Israel: the use of the term ‘genocide’ to describe Israel’s military response in Gaza following the Hamas pogrom. “There is not, and never has been, a Palestinian genocide; there is not, and never has been, a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Palestinian people on account of their identity,” Enthoven declared in the days following 7 October, explaining that words have a precise meaning and that speaking of genocide in relation to the situation in Gaza is semantically false and intellectually dishonest. “There was an Armenian genocide, a Jewish genocide, a Cambodian genocide, a genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, and perhaps also a genocide of the Tibetans, the Uighurs or the Rohingya; in all these cases, we are dealing with intentions of extermination planned by a state,” he added. Since then, he has made many enemies amongst that section of the French left which has placed the Palestinian cause at the heart of its identity, but in the pages of the liberal weekly he edits, *Franc-Tireur*, and on television talk shows – even the most hostile ones – he continues to fight for a rational discussion of what is happening in the Middle East.

“In a certain France, when one thinks of the word ‘genocide’, it is immediately associated with the word ‘Gaza’. One does not think of Sudan, one does not think of the Uighurs, one does not think of Tibet: no, one thinks of Gaza. It is a semantic defeat and, at the same time, a victory for the majority view,” Raphaël Enthoven tells Il Foglio, before adding: “There has been a desire to attribute to Israel a crime so grave as to downplay the significance of 7 October. At the root of this accusation of genocide lies the belief that defending the Palestinians means standing on the side of justice, standing on the side of the oppressed. But since 7 October, defending the Palestinians has also meant condoning undeniable crimes, appalling crimes, crimes of which the perpetrators themselves have boasted. And so 7 October places the defenders of Palestine in the position of having to defend the indefensible. They can only do so if they downplay the gravity of the events of 7 October and exaggerate the Israeli response’. And further: ‘It is for this reason that, instead of speaking of terrorism, they speak of resistance, as if the rape or abduction of children were a form of resistance. And it is for this reason that, by ignoring the data showing that the majority of the dead are men of fighting age and that we are not facing genocide but, objectively speaking, a war, they exaggerate by describing the Israeli response as genocide, so that, faced with the scale of Israel’s alleged crimes, one ends up, in a sense, regarding 7 October as a mere detail.”

Enthoven lost several friends in Paris after 7 October. Muslim friends, above all, who until then had strenuously defended the République and sacred secularism, but who proved incapable of describing Hamas’s massacres on 7 October as ‘terrorist attacks’, preferring instead to speak of ‘acts of resistance’. Out of that loss, in August 2024, a book entitled “Lettre à un ami arabe” was published by Éditions de l’Observatoire. “In public debate, there are two categories of opponents: those who deliberately use the term ‘genocide’ to delegitimise Israel, calling for its disappearance or its transformation into a binational state, and those who lack the courage to oppose this,” explains Enthoven. “The most telling example is the recent incident in which Rima Hassan (a MEP for *France insoumise*, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left-wing party, and a passionate advocate for the Palestinian cause, ed.) issued a fatwa against Gisèle Journo, founder and director of the influencer agency Gisèle Paris, because she shared the stories of an Israeli soldier on TikTok. Following the fatwa, Journo was unfollowed from the stories of everyone who had spent the summer with her, starting with Léna Situations, who is a star. This is the most fearsome category: the sheep – those who are afraid to stand up to the madmen who talk of genocide, those who follow the herd. ‘Cowards are more dangerous than madmen, because there are more of them,’ says the French philosopher.

On 1 May 2024, Labour Day, in response to the expulsion from a march in Saint-Étienne of the Socialist MEP and leader of Place Publique, Raphaël Glucksmann – an expulsion carried out by a small group of troublemakers belonging to La France insoumise – Enthoven wrote the following on X: “La France insoumise is a detestable, violent, conspiracy-theory-spouting, passionately anti-Semitic movement led by a spokesperson whom nobody has elected.” For that message, Mélenchon’s supporters dragged him before the courts on charges of defamation – and lost. The 17th Chamber of the Paris Judicial Court ruled that he had not, in fact, committed any “defamation”: the editor of Franc-Tireur had merely expressed an opinion, which, as such, falls within the scope of freedom of expression. “From 7 October onwards, La France Insoumise has played a significant role in giving free rein to anti-Semitic rhetoric in France,” says Enthoven, pointing the finger in particular at Rima Hassan. She “endorses the actions of Hamas, deeming them legitimate, and provides a legal framework for the unbridled expression of the most primitive form of anti-Semitism. In this respect, her responsibility is minimal compared to that of La France insoumise, which has reserved an important place for her within its organisational structure, decided to elevate her to the status of an icon, and reaps the benefits of the idolatry she enjoys”.

The moral failure of the intellectual class in reporting on Gaza extends beyond France’s borders. “‘Genocide’ is a term widespread throughout the world, used by the ‘beautiful souls’ to criminalise the only Jewish state on the planet as well as the only democratic state in the Arab world. Democrats have found a way to be democratically anti-Semitic. They will not let such a pleasure slip by,” says Enthoven caustically. Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is the embodiment of this. “She is a Hamas supporter; she defends Hamas, echoes its rhetoric, and claims that Hamas is not to blame, that it is not a terrorist organisation but a perfectly respectable political movement. Albanese has had mayors who dared to speak of the hostages in her presence booed,” Enthoven emphasises, referring to the incident in October 2025, when Marco Massari, the PD mayor of Reggio Emilia, was booed and heckled by the audience in Albanese’s presence (who rebuked him) for citing the release of Israeli hostages as one of the conditions for achieving peace in Gaza. “Albanese is your Rima Hassan,” Enthoven continues, “but the toxicity of these individuals is matched only by our own cowardice. In a normal world, where everyone firmly defends what they believe in, speeches like these would immediately be branded with infamy, just as Jean-Marie Le Pen’s speeches were in the 1980s.”