An Open Letter to Prof. Judith Butler
Judith,
We’ve never met. But I eagerly studied your writings as a graduate student of cultural studies some years ago. Back then, I was inspired by their revolutionary and liberating energy.
I went back and read them in these days of devastation for my people and for the people in Gaza. I have heard and read you express yourself - with the same powerful rhetoric – on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war. But what I heard was not a text of liberation, at least not for me and my people. What I heard was a theoretical voice that repeats itself while stubbornly refusing to look at reality with eyes that have compassion for all lives, Palestinian and Jewish. I watched you as you justified your refusal to define the Hamas attack on Israeli communities of the Gaza Envelop as "barbaric", since, in your opinion, barbarism can only be used to signify the violence of the white colonizer, Israel.
But the very soul of critical theories is the commitment to deconstruct popular political and cultural concepts, including our own. Especially at times when cannot deny the fact that these concepts have failed us. I couldn’t help but think that in the case of your recent statements, a long-held position prevailed over the intellectual drive.
For the full text on the Times of Israel blog page: click here