[...] Many conservative (and not only conservative) political thinkers, from Blaise Pascal to Immanuel Kant and Joseph de Maistre, elaborated the notion of the illegitimate origins of power, of the ‘founding crime’ on which states are based, which is why one should offer ‘noble lies’ to people in the guise of heroic narratives of origin. With regard to such ideas, what was often said about Israel is quite true: the misfortune of Israel is that it was established as a nation-state a century or two too late, in conditions when such founding crimes are no longer acceptable. [...]

[...] what if what disturbs me is precisely that I find myself in a state which hasn’t yet obliterated the ‘founding violence’ of its ‘illegitimate’ origins, repressed them into a timeless past. In this sense, what the state of Israel confronts us with is merely the obliterated past of every state power.