Judith Butler in Frankfurt: Anatomy of a Witch Hunt

The prestigious Theodor W. Adorno Prize is awarded every three years on September 11 by the City of Frankfurt to recognize outstanding achievement in philosophy, theater, music or film.  This year it was awarded to Berkeley professor Judith Butler. The choice ignited a firestorm of controversy - especially among Jewish organizations - because of Professor Buller's vocal opposition to Israel's policies in the occupied territories. 

Judith Butler is a Jewish feminist, but is demonized by the Israel Lobby in the US and Germany as a "Jew Hater" and "anti-Semite".  Recently, she answered these charges in detail in a piece published in Die Zeit. It is worth reading the entire article, but I'll just quote an excerpt here:

Meine Auffassung ist, dass Juden und Palästinenser einen Weg finden müssen, unter gleichen Bedingungen zusammenzuleben. Wie so viele andere sehne auch ich mich nach einem wirklich demokratischen Gemeinwesen in jenem Flecken Erde, und ich befürworte die Grundsätze der Selbstbestimmung und des Zusammenlebens für beide Völker, ja für alle Völker. Und ich wünsche mir, zusammen mit einer wachsenden Zahl von Juden und Nichtjuden, dass die Besetzung ein Ende findet, dass Gewalttätigkeiten jeder Art eingestellt werden und dass die wesentlichen politischen Rechte aller Völker in der Region durch eine neue politische Struktur garantiert werden.

(I firmly believe that Jews and Palestinians must find a way to life together under common conditions. Like many others I long for a truly democratic governance on that patch of earth, and I support the fundamental rights of self-determination and coexistence for both groups- indeed, for all people.  And along with a growing number of Jews and non-Jews I hope for an end to the occupation, and and end to violence of any kind and that the essential political  rights of all peoples in the region are guaranteed by a new political framework.)

This response has hardly satisfied Judith Butler's critics.  In fact, as Haaretz reports, the witch hunt continues: 

This witch hunt originates in a dangerous strand of American Jewry that has been assaulting freedom of expression even in American universities. An article in The Jerusalem Post by one such person opened with the idiotic sentence, "Judith Butler ... came to prominence as an anti-Israel agitator almost a decade ago."

As Haaretz writes, Judith Butler is continuing the tradition of Hannah Arendt, who criticized certain states for suspending the legal status of certain groups of its citizens:

Butler is coming to Frankfurt in Arendt's footsteps. As she wrote in another work, "Hannah Arendt was hardly brandishing weapons when she argued in the late 1940s and early 1950s against Israel as a state based on notions of Jewish sovereignty. She becomes now a resource for post-Zionism ... Arendt was perhaps in the 20th century the most avid secular Jewish critic of Zionism, and she was able to articulate reasons why she found the establishment of the state of Israel to be illegitimate without thereby calling for a war against that polity."

No doubt today Arendt would be demonized by the Israel Lobby as a "jew Hater" and "anti-Semite".

I cannot find the text of Judith Butler's acceptance speech she delivered in Frankfurt.  According to one report on the speech, Butler did not directly address the hateful criticism of her, but rather offered reflection on the famous sentence from Adorno's Minima Moralia :"Wrong life cannot be lived rightly" (Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen). That in itself is a suitable rejoinder to those who distort Judith Butler's writing and promote an unjust system.

Comments

[Harvey Morrell]

Butler reminds me superficially of Tony Judt, who also faced similar bogus charges of being a 'Jew-hater' and anti-semite and for much the same reasons.

[michijo]

The solution to this problem has been known to me for years. Move all the Palestinians to Florida and deport every single Jew in the USA to Israel, including Rahm Emanuele, and cut off all foreign aid to them.

[Julien]

Acceptance speech in French:
http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2012/09/28/pour-une-morale-a-l-ere-precaire_1767449_3232.html

[Nikki]

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