Two major French newspapers, Libération and Le Figaro, one left and the other right wing, in their editions on January 27, 2006, wrote several pages about Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian legislative elections.

Like the rest of the «western» media, both newspapers made efforts to denigrate the decision of the Palestinian people, to which the right to resistance to the oppression is denied, and presented the Palestinian struggle as a homicidal madness.

Both newspapers showed on the front page a Hamas armed member. Libération included together with the photo the headline «The electoral bomb: Hamas’ great victory, Islamic party that promotes attacks, disturbs the rest of Palestinian and Israeli forces», whereas Le Figaro indicated: «Hamas: the world gets alarmed».

Libération suggested a surprising idea. It portrayed Hamas as a party that lacks a political project and whose original fight was no other than «A long violent march to power» (title of the second article). It seems obviously then that «Israel is closed to any negotiation» (title of the fifth article) with «Hamas that deprives it of any right to exist».

Much more expeditiously, Le Figaro indicated that the «Palestinians penalized corruption and endangered the peace process» by voting for Hamas.

None of the two newspapers, which are always willing to make denunciations when their favourites lose the elections, mentioned, however, the irregularities in this case: massive financing of Al Fatah by the United States, the different killings of Hamas leaders undertaken by Tsahal or the fact that Israel had prohibited 94% of Palestinian residents in eastern Jerusalem to vote in this elections. All these violations of democracy were aimed at preventing Hamas from winning, which despite everything, obtained 75% of the registered votes.

Libération and Le Figaro prefer to echo the rhetoric of the Israeli propaganda, which has ascertained that «there is no Arab interlocutor for peace» (i.e. the continuation of war will be due to the tenacity of the victims of the occupation). Both newspapers indicated that «the Islamic movement advocates for the destruction of Israel», which is not true. In fact, Hamas constituent card demands the end of the Palestinian occupation, not the expulsion of the Jewish people.

Ossama Lotfy