Judith Butler on BDS, anti-Semitism and speech

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:26:00 +0000

On Thursday evening, Brooklyn College hosted a speaking event about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement with philosopher Judith Butler and Palestinian BDS campaigner Omar Barghouti. Having resisted threats from a chorus of critics and New York City Council members, the lecture thankfully went ahead without interruption (see here for background on the controversy leading up to the event).

The Nation has published in full Butler's prepared remarks for the event, in which she reasserts her well-made point about the harm done by equating political criticism of Israeli government policy and anti-Semitism. A number of highlights are worth pulling out.

Butler condemns attempts to censor the Brooklyn College event with typical clarity, parsing out the flawed, contradictory logic used by those who tried to shut the event down:

“Effective” censorship over Israel event at Brooklyn College

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 17:20:00 +0000

There is some dark irony that New York city council officials are threatening to defund Brooklyn College over a proposed panel featuring world renowned philosopher Judith Butler on the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign. After all, Butler herself has written so persuasively about the dangers of silencing academic debate over Israeli policy and the harm done by conflating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism.

The background to the current controversy is this: A student group at CUNY's Brooklyn College, Students for Justice in Palestine, is this week hosting two speakers who will discuss their views on the BDS movement, which calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel in protest of the government's oppressive policies toward the Palestinian people. The speakers are Palestinian BDS advocate Omar Barghouti and University of California Berkeley philosopher and BDS supporter Judith Butler. The event is being co-sponsored by numerous student and community groups, as well as Brooklyn College's political science department.

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Judith Butler on BDS, anti-Semitism and speech

“Effective” censorship over Israel event at Brooklyn College