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The pro-Israel lobby in the French media: the case of journalist Charles Enderlin

January 19, 2025 at 9:00 am

French-Israeli journalist Charles Enderlin is pictured on October 10, 2015 in Bayeux, northwestern France, during the closing ceremony of the annual 2015 Bayeux-Calvados war journalism award week. [CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images]

This is an analyse of a recent media interview by the most popular journalist in France on the Israel-Palestine issue: a journalist who was the representative in Jerusalem of the main public television channel for 30 years. It is a 35-minute interview during which the journalist delivers a series of messages based on incomplete, biased or even false accounts. This is not classic pro-Israel propaganda, easy to identify. On the contrary, it is a well-rehearsed dialogue, coming from a personality who is considered “good in all respects” (i.e. “moderate” even “left-wing”.)

Interviewer: It is an understatement to say that you have had and still have adversaries, enemies. You are called an anti-Zionist, a traitor, the Flavius Josephus of our time. 

From the start, the journalist places Enderlin in the position of a victim of the Israeli far-right.

Interviewer: Are you a Zionist?

Enderlin: At the end of 1973 I was in uniform on the other side of the Suez Canal. In 1982, I was an Israeli fighter in Lebanon. I have a 29-year-old son who is part of the special units: 2 periods of 3 months in the south, he leaves on Sunday, my 20-year-old grandson has been a fighter in the south for 11 months.

By avoiding answering the question, Zionist or anti-Zionist, Enderlin avoids the little phrase that could create a buzz. On the other hand, the rest leaves no doubt about his positioning. He talks about the northern front, the eastern front, the southern front. That is, it suggests that Israel is under attack from all sides, while Israel is occupying and annexing. While the genocide has been underway for 15 months, he boasts that following in his footsteps as a veteran are a son and a grandson. He even specifies that his son is part of the “special forces”, i.e. the deadliest troops of the Israeli army. Without answering the journalist’s question, Enderlin places himself as a hero, even though he is a militant Zionist, a soldier, whose family is actively participating in an ongoing genocide.

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Enderlin: I don’t need to take lessons in Zionism from anyone, especially from those who don’t pay their taxes in Israel.

Enderlin, an Israeli national, places himself as a victim of the hardline Jews, who do not live in Israel and incite to crime. He thus sets himself apart in a manner that strengthens his image of honour. He is both a victim and a hero.

Journalist: The Al-Durra affair has earned you some insane attacks. France 2 attacked your enemies and had them convicted.

The Second Intifada was marked by the murder in Gaza of a child who had taken refuge in the arms of his father, the victim of Israeli army fire. The scene was filmed by Talal Abu Rahmeh, Enderlin’s cameraman, while the latter was not at the scene. The Zionist far-right then accused Enderlin of false reporting and claimed that the child was still alive. The case was brought before the courts in France, and before the Israeli Supreme Court where the withdrawal of his accreditation was requested. Enderlin, rightly, won. This is a golden opportunity to magnify the supposed independence of the Israeli “judiciary”. A certain way of masking many “decisions” of the Supreme Court such as that of “legalising” the deportation to Lebanon of 400 Palestinians in 1992, annexation of territory or the use of torture.

Muhammad Al-Durrah and his father were filmed crouching behind a concrete block along one of Gaza streets as Israeli army soldiers showered them with heavy gunfire, 30 September 2000

Enderlin then returns to the subject which is the republication of his book ‘The Great Blindness – Israel in Front of Radical Islam’ published in 2009. The general thesis is that Israel is responsible for the creation and rise of Hamas. Thus, in the 1980s, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is said to have set up social activities in Gaza “with the carte blanche of the Israeli authorities”.  This is the classic, racist description of political Islam: the social activity of the movement would only aim to mask the preparation of violent actions, thus feeding into the stereotype of the deceitful and bloodthirsty Arab. And the movement prospered only thanks to the support and financing of a “blinded” Israeli state.

Yassin received enormous sums from abroad, the result of collections by the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East. The money arrived en masse against the advice of one of the few righteous, Avner Cohen, an officer who understood what radical Islam was.

The tone is set: Muslim Brotherhood is radical Islam. Palestinians are radical Islamists by choice or by nature. Occupation, annexation, apartheid have been erased.

And Enderlin drives the point home: Yassin is the most radical branch, that of Sayed Qutb who was “hanged by President Nasser in 1966”.  Yassin is in Gaza and observes the arrival of the Israelis and he publishes the works of Qutb who is the theologian of Al-Qaeda and Daesh. Nothing is specified about Yassin’s ideas. He is simply bundled up with Daesh, a movement that Yassin, who was assassinated in 2004, obviously did not know.

Enderlin then insists on his alleged knowledge of the field – of Gaza – where he had the leisure and audacity to meet Hamas officials.

Enderlin: I was having coffee with Dr. Mahmoud Zahar, No. 3 of what became Hamas, I was received at Abdel Aziz Rantisi‘s house. Well received at first, less so later, the fact that I was Jewish may not have pleased them.

He provides no information about what Zahar or Al-Rantisi told him. He claims that he was less well received over time, not because Hamas officials have listened to his reports, but simply because they have learned that he is Jewish and therefore their judgement was based on anti-Semitism.

Enderlin: I was beginning to wonder: ‘Why are we helping them?’ … In 1988, the mask fell and Al-Mujamma [an association founded in 1973 by Sheikh Yassin] became Hamas. And the Al-Qassam Brigades began attacking the Israeli army and settlements in Gaza.

This is false. The Al-Qassam Brigades were only founded in 1992.

Enderlin: 1988 was also the year Yasser Arafat issued the declaration of independence in Algiers.  Arafat accepts Resolution 242 for the first time, so we are moving towards negotiations. A two-state solution, we are talking about it, it is possible. 1988 is the pivotal period, the attacks etc.

In reality, the suicide bombings committed by Hamas did not begin until after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians who were praying at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron on 25 February 1994.

Enderlin: The other pivotal period was 2005 when [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon decided to evacuate the settlements in Gaza. Everyone applauds, but the evacuation is not coordinated with the Palestinian Authority.

It was not a big sacrifice: there were only 8,000 settlers in Gaza, and they were very expensive.  Above all, Enderlin happily went from 1988 to 2005. He forgets to mention that Israel has not respected the steps provided for by the “Oslo process“, and in particular the freeze on settlements. While Hamas was crushed by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Enderlin: Then Arafat dies.

Error of date: Arafat died on 11 November 2004, before the evacuation of the settlements.

Enderlin continues with a very curious story from which, as is often the case, the Palestinians are absent. The Americans and Jordanians had formed a Palestinian police battalion in Amman. The intifada has calmed down, the Palestinian security services are being rebuilt having been partly destroyed by the Second Intifada, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refuses to support them. “We are not going to rebuild the Palestinian police.” This means that Hamas will regain control.

Then came the first free municipal and then parliamentary elections, and Enderlin’s position was clear: “There was no reason for Hamas to participate in elections. Elections are Oslo, moving towards peace, towards an agreement. To allow Hamas, is to bring the wolf into the fold.”

And this is the position that has been hammered home by Israel and its Western supporters, until today. Enderlin does not ask about Palestinian representation or self-determination.

Enderlin: Hamas wins. It’s not going very well … the whole world is cutting bridges.

This is a very strange way to tell the story. Hamas won an absolute majority of seats in the Palestinian parliament, legally, as attested by international observers on the ground. Above all, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh began forming a government of national unity that includes members of minority parties. This new government was not recognised by the West and the Americans immediately launched what they called the “Plan for the 2007 Presidency”, recruiting, training and arming in Jordan a Palestinian militia of several thousand men, intended to take power in Gaza for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority. This was revealed by WikiLeaks in what the US labelled the ‘Plan for the 2007 Presidency’.

Enderlin: In 2007 Hamas took the big decision to conquer Gaza by force.

An absolute lie: it is exactly the opposite: Hamas defeats the coup d’état fomented by the American administration.

Enderlin: In Gaza, Abbas’s Palestinian police have never been reinforced. The Kalashnikovs they had for 15 years no longer work.

False: US General Dayton trained and armed 2,400 Palestinian soldiers in Jordan. Light armoured vehicles were introduced by Israel into the Gaza Strip, I have seen them personally.

Enderlin: Abbas asks for 2 Apache helicopters and this would have tipped the scales. [Then Israeli Prime Minister] Olmert refused. 2009: Netanyahu comes to power. He continues Sharon’s policy with one difference: Sharon had the leaders of Hamas killed – Yassin by a missile and he flew to join his ancestors. Netanyahu has banned the liquidation of Hamas military leaders six times.  

Enderlin applauded Yassin’s murder in 2004. However, his movement won the elections two years later and has never been so powerful as in 2023…

Director of the Israeli intelligence Shin Bet from 1996 to 2000, Ami Ayalon, said: “I can prove that Hamas did not become more moderate after the assassination of Sheikh Yassin. When we deal not with the one who is about to kill us, but with those who preach resistance, not only are we embarking on a path forbidden by international law, we are flouting the most basic justice, we are putting aside all moral considerations, but – I am speaking as the head of the Shin Bet – it is ineffective… On the other hand, there is a concept called ‘the banality of evil’. When you start doing this en masse, when two hundred people have died because of what is called ‘targeted killing’, it turns into assembly line work, and you wonder less and less where you are going to stop.”

File picture dated 07 February 2000 shows spiritual leader of Hamas Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (R), who was assassinated by Israel on 22 March, and Abdelaziz al-Rantissi in Gaza City. Al-Rantissi, chief of the radical Islamic Movement Hamas in the Palestinian Territories who succeeded late Sheikh Yassin, died 17 April 2004 of his injuries from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. [Fayez Nureldine / AFP/ Getty Images]

File picture dated 07 February 2000 shows spiritual leader of Hamas Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (R), who was assassinated by Israel on 22 March, and Abdelaziz al-Rantissi in Gaza City. Al-Rantissi, chief of the radical Islamic Movement Hamas in the Palestinian Territories who succeeded late Sheikh Yassin, died 17 April 2004 of his injuries from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. [Fayez Nureldine / AFP/ Getty Images]

Enderlin: In 2011 there was a big movement in Israel that started with the increase in the price of cottage cheese!

A great classic of disinformation: citing a micro-event, drawing decisive conclusions; to draw a parallel between events that have no causal link, but which humanise Israeli families: a population ‘that loves cottage cheese’ cannot dream of genocide.

Enderlin: Netanyahu is worried, we are talking about an Israeli Spring as we are talking about an Arab Spring. ‘What to do?’ Netanyahu thinks. And someone in Netanyahu’s entourage says: ‘What if we release Gilat Shalit?’

Incredible way to tell the story! However, Enderlin knew the case well: it was he who launched, as soon as the soldier was captured, the elements of language that would be taken up to the point of nausea during the five years that the negotiation of a prisoner exchange lasted. David Pujadas said on the news on 26 June 2006: “The soldier was kidnapped yesterday by Palestinian Islamist armed groups. Paris is concerned because the hostage is also French.” Enderlin, continues, against the backdrop of a report made at the home of the soldier’s family:

The long wait continues in anguish. At the age of 19, Gilad Shalit was doing his compulsory military service in the tanks. He has dual nationality through his grandmother who emigrated from France in 1948. Father Noam would like the intervention of the French government. The France ambassador Gerard Araud came to support the family.

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The soldier was not captured but kidnapped. He is not a prisoner but a hostage. He was doing his compulsory military service, does that mean he is not responsible for anything, even if he is operating the gun of a tank, in uniform, captured in a combat post? Waiting in anguish is de rigueur. He is a compatriot, although neither he nor his parents have resided in France, nor do they speak the language. In spite of this, the mayor of Paris displayed a giant photo of him on the square in front of the Paris City Hall for years, and his family were received by French President Sarkozy and the pope.

Enderlin: The idea is: we free him. This means that more than 200 former Hamas members of the military wing will also be released. Olmert and the Shin Bet director are against it. Among those freed was Yahya Sinwar, with the argument that ‘Sinwar did not kill Jews!’

True: Sinwar was imprisoned between 1988 and 2011. He was convicted of the execution of four Palestinians accused of spying for Israel. This goes against the theory of Sinwar, who ordered a “pogrom” on October 7.

Enderlin: In 2014, it was Operation Protective Edge between Gaza and Hamas [sic]. Netanyahu did not want this war. On nine occasions he made proposals to cease fire. On nine occasions Mohamed Deif, Sinwar was the number two, refused.

 

So Netanyahu was a pacifist, and the Palestinians responsible for the Israeli offensive? The reality was that a government of national unity was being formed and Netanyahu did not want it. This segment of the Enderlin interview is illustrated with a “photo” of Mohamed Deif. It is in fact 100 per cent computer generated showing a chubby character handling a wad of dollars! This is reminiscent of the video by the same Enderlin (INA 2003, Talal Abu Rahmeh) supposedly showing “the 1st interview with the military leader Mohamed Deif”. However, the video shows a masked fighter marching in the street. It is not Mohamed Deif. The voice we hear is not that of Mohamed Deif. It’s a remake of the famous fake interview of Fidel Castro by Patrick Poivre d’Arvor on 16 December 1991.

Enderlin: Any military operation causes significant damage and collateral damage, children killed, etc. Terrible images that, abroad, produce day by day the rise of support for the Palestinians and the condemnation of Israel.    

So the problem, for Enderlin, is not the bombings, it’s the images of the victims. What is serious is not even so much the images, but what they provoke abroad.

And Enderlin clarifies his thoughts:

Gaza, I was there, I saw the fighting, a shell exploding in Gaza, it’s collateral damage, the population density one of the highest in the world.

This sentence was uttered by Enderlin in October 2024, a year after the bombing of Gaza began and 11 months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that there was a “plausible” case for genocide in Gaza. The 50,000 deaths are collateral damage. Linked to the fact that there are too many Palestinians.

Enderlin: I am convinced that in the operation of 7 October 2023, Sinwar and his team not only prepared the attack thoroughly, which was not only the conquest of the military bases around Gaza. The orders were ‘you massacre civilians’. I am convinced that Sinwar intended to push Israel to overreact. Produce terrible anger on the part of Israelis.

Enderlin forgets Israel’s authorisation of a party on the edge of Gaza. The implementation of the Hannibal Directive on 7 October means only an independent international investigation can determine who is directly responsible for each death. Enderlin does not say a word about the siege, the occupation, the annexations, the “normalisation”.

Enderlin: They killed women, children, babies, stories of rape, it’s appalling. 

Lie: No babies (under three years old), according to the Israelis themselves, died on 7 October.  Regarding possible sexual assaults, no evidence has been presented to UN investigators. The crime scenes were immediately altered.

Enderlin: At the same time, I will not be removed from the idea that Sinwar and his associates in Iran, Lebanon or elsewhere prepared the operation on social networks in support of Hamas. And we were starting to have an incredible word: genocide. All of a sudden, accusing the Jews of genocide, from the point of view of Hamas’ communication, is still a coup that has succeeded.

Here, everything is said: Iran’s fault, social networks. Forgotten are the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the siege, the settlements. As for the genocide, it is a public relations stunt. Enderlin was interviewed on 9 October 2024 and the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dates back to 26 January 2024.

Journalist: Why did Israel support Hamas?

Enderlin: It is the ‘no Palestinian state’ strategy.

The message here is particularly vicious. Israel is said to have favoured Hamas to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Whereas I, Charles Enderlin, am a ‘good guy’ and I have the courage to wish for the creation of a Palestinian state. And for this, we must, of course, go through negotiations of which the Oslo Accords were the first step. Enderlin forgets that Hamas itself, which has been demanding for decades the creation of a Palestinian state, the application of international law, mandates lawyers to plead its case at the International Criminal Court. He also forgets that Israel has not applied the provisions of the “Oslo Accords” for a single day and that to refer to Oslo is, on the contrary, to postpone the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.

Enderlin then criticises the Nation-State Law promulgated in 2018: Israel was transformed that day. It is no longer the same Israel.

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No, between Oslo, which prescribed a freeze on the colonisation of the West Bank, and 2018, the number of settlers has increased from 200,000 to 700,000. No, Israel did not transform itself “that day”. It would not be enough to go back to the day before the election of the “most right-wing government in history”.

Then Enderlin rightly criticised the Hamas charter in 2008. This one is indeed catastrophic, but Enderlin forgets to mention that it was rewritten in 2017 and that it is this last document that constitutes Hamas’ political programme for today and tomorrow.

Then Enderlin warns us: If “the Palestinian Authority collapses, we may be heading for a new intifada.” This is another front that Israel will be forced to tackle.

Because right now, it’s not an intifada? After a year of bombings and 50,000 deaths in Gaza, the occupation of the West Bank, should we bet on an unelected “Palestinian Authority”, abhorred by the Palestinians, to “prevent Israel from opening another front”?

Enderlin: The hostages are an indelible stain on Israeli morals and ethics.

The indelible stain on Israeli morality is not to have perpetrated a genocide or killed Israei captives held in Gaza.

A leading journalist, respected by the French public, Charles Enderlin communicated according to the Israeli doctrine of Hasbara. This is ever more effective for him because of his image as being a “progressive” and “secular”, and his apparent support for the creation of some sort of Palestinian state. However, Enderlin supports political assassinations and shows an unwavering attachment to the Ariel Sharon of Sabra and Shatila.