Pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Sciences Po: why the red hands symbol is controversial

Conscious reference to a massacre or simple call for a ceasefire? This weekend, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations blocking the Parisian Sciences Po school to demand peace in Gaza did not fail to fuel the debate on television sets and social networks. One sequence particularly caught the attention: that of these students, sometimes wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, brandishing their red-painted hands, Friday April 26. Some saw it as a reference to a lynching. Others the simple expression of opposition to violence.

The first fuse of the controversy was lit by Pernelle Richardot, elected socialist from Strasbourg. “Driven by anti-Semitic hatred, in the deafening silence of a part of the Republican left, the 'right-thinking' students of Sciences Po are glorifying a lynching,” the municipal councilor said indignantly on red hands and that of a young man with hands covered in blood, dated October 12, 2000 in Ramallah.

Later, the writer and columnist Raphaël Enthoven relayed a sketch by the designer Joann Sfar, initially published on Instagram, which accuses those who “wear this symbol today” of calling for a “massacre”. “The symbol of red hands is not a call for a ceasefire, it is a reference to carnage,” he writes.

The carnage in question took place at the start of the second intifada, when two Israeli reservists, Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Norznich, were killed with their bare hands by members of a Palestinian mob while they were being held in a police station in Ramallah. One of the murderers then brandished his bloody hands out the window and addressed an enthusiastic crowd in victory. One of the bodies had been thrown into the crowd, the other hanged.

Across the Channel, the use of this symbol had already caused controversy during the Oscars ceremony last March. Some participants in the annual cinema high mass, including singer Billie Eilish and actor Mark Ruffalo, displayed a pine tree decorated with a red hand and a heart, to demand “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza” as well as “the release of all hostages”. In fact, this symbol has been used in numerous pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in the United States and in Arab countries, since October 7. And it is portrayed by some observers as an apology for the Ramallah massacre.

On the set of BFMTV, Sunday April 28, Renaissance MP Maud Bregeon denounced “slogans and symbols used (during demonstrations, Editor’s note) which flirted with anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism”. On the same set, Hubert Launois, student at Sciences Po and member of the Palestinian Committee, (awkwardly) defended himself from any anti-Semitism: “It is a symbol which can be shocking, which is controversial, it refers to events tragic. Indeed, if it refers to this event, then it is an anti-Semitic drift that must be committed...,” he declared, before correcting himself: “That we must fight, sorry.”

Also read: Le Figaro editorial: “Sciences Po and Islamo!”

To our colleagues at Libération, the young man then put forward another justification: that of ignorance linked to age. “I didn’t have this reference, neither did my comrades,” he assures. “I was born in 2004. In 2000, many were not born, or were 1 or 2 years old. “It’s not an image that speaks to our generation,” he explained to the newspaper, saying he was “sorry” and calling for “pay attention to this symbol” in the future.

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Other supporters of this symbol defended themselves by arguing that it was also used by the Israelis themselves, as evidenced by a photo from the Times of Israel illustrating a demonstration for the release of the hostages on April 23 in Tel Aviv. And that it therefore could not be an anti-Semitic sign. But the cartoonist Joann Sfar stressed that the red hands were precisely used here to denounce a situation similar to that of Ramallah, in the context of the massacre of October 7.

Some also argue that the symbol is used in all kinds of demonstrations denouncing violence. In fact, the UN established an “International Red Hand Day” in 2002, aiming to raise awareness among the world population about the plight of child soldiers. The bloody hands symbol is also often used by Black Lives Matter activists or environmental activists. A red hand was painted in front of the Louvre in February 2022, to denounce the climate emergency. The symbol was also recently used in a demonstration in Athens, after the murder of a woman by her partner. But it is difficult, in the current situation, to ignore the context.