position:courageous critic of israel

Loutre 29/08/2012

Judith Butler : Heftiger Streit um Adorno-Preisträgerin - Rhein-Main - FAZ
►http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/judith-butler-heftiger-streit-um-adorno-preistraegerin-11871446.html

Die Jüdische Gemeinde Frankfurt und der Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland wollen den Festakt zur Verleihung des Theodor-W.-Adorno-Preises der Stadt Frankfurt am 11. September boykottieren. Vermutlich werde kein offizieller Vertreter des Judentums in die Paulskirche kommen, sagte der Frankfurter Gemeindevorsitzende Salomon Korn, der auch Vizepräsident des Zentralrats ist. Mit ihrem Fernbleiben wollen Gemeinde und Zentralrat ihr Missfallen über die Wahl der Amerikanerin Judith Butler zur diesjährigen Preisträgerin ausdrücken. Sie werfen der Philosophin und Literaturwissenschaftlerin Antisemitismus vor. Butler bekämpfe Israel und legitimiere die Terrororganisationen Hamas und Hizbullah.
Ein Sprecher des Zentralrats nannte Butler, die selbst Jüdin ist, eine „bekennende Israel-Hasserin“ und bezeichnete die Amerikanerin als moralisch verdorben. Man dürfe und solle die Politik Israels kritisieren, fügte Korn gestern hinzu. Doch müsse man die Verhältnismäßigkeit wahren. Dies habe Butler mit ihrer Kritik nicht getan. „Wir haben große Bedenken gegen die Preisträgerin“, so Korn.

Le 11 septembre prochain, Judith Butler va recevoir le Prix Theodor W. Adorno de la ville de Francfort, La communauté juive de Francfort ne participera pas à la remise de prix accusant Judith Butler d’antisémitisme.
Ce qui pour eux signifie qu’elle combat la politique israélienne de colonisation de la Palestine et soutient le BDS.

Le prix Theodor-W.-Adorno (Theodor-W.-Adorno-Preis) est un prix créé en 1977 par la ville de Francfort-sur-le-Main en souvenir du philosophe, sociologue et musicien Theodor W. Adorno, qui a enseigné vingt ans à l’université Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe. Il est attribué tous les trois ans, le 11 septembre, date anniversaire de la naissance d’Adorno, et récompense des contributions exceptionnelles dans les domaines de la philosophie, de la musique, du théâtre et du cinéma. Il consiste en un document artistique et est doté de 50 000 euros.
►http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prix_Theodor-W.-Adorno

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Loutre 30/08/2012

Judith Butler: why so defensive, Judith?
►http://networkedblogs.com/ByTFI
Posted by As’ad AbuKhalil
Judith Butler is a critic of the state of Israel. In the American context, she is a courageous critic of Israel. I participated many years ago in a summer seminar on Antigone that she so ably ran. She has been vilified by critics unfairly: and mostly by people who have a hard time with her philosphical reference points. I just read her response to the Jerusalem Post: I am rather disappointed. 1) The Israeli critics have made her most defensive. Every sentence drips with defensiveness. 2) She has to remind her readers how much she is the product of Judaism and Jewish culture. I mean, we are all products of our upbringing and the milieus in which we are raised by why do we have to bring it and underline it when attacked by sectarian critics. I can’t imagine myself responding to Muslim critics by reminding them about my Muslim family and about childhood experiences in Ramadan. Why does that matter except to allow the enemies to score a polemical point. 3) she said: “In my view, there are strong Jewish traditions, even early Zionist traditions, that value co-habitation and that offer ways to oppose violence of all kinds, including state violence.” This sentence is historically false. There are NO—NONE—early Zionist traditions that “value cohabitation and that offer ways to oppose violence of all kinds, including state violence”. There are none. When people—usually left Zionists—write words like that they usually are referring to the writings of either Ahad Ha’am or Martin Buber. But neither of them, nor together, represented “a Zionist tradition”. They were lone personalities and their entire body of writing don’t amount to what Butler is describing here. Again, way too defensive. 4) She tells us here that she is only partly supportive of BDS. OK. Sorry for the misunderstanding as we thought that you were supportive of BDS. I will make sure to remember that. Imagine that someone said about boycott of apartheid South Africa: that I am only partly supportive of boycott. But does that mean that you are only partly opposed to Israeli injustices? 5) She then writes this: “I do not endorse practices of violent resistance and neither do I endorse state violence, cannot, and never have.” (her emphasis). In this sentence she clearly and unequivocally equates the violence of occupation with the violence of resistance. 6) Lastly, I want to say that whenever our enemies put us on the defensive they win.

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J udith Butler and the Theodor Adorno Prize
By EDWARD ALEXANDER
08/29/2012 2
►http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=283105

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