15 September 2012 Jüdischen Museum Berlin
Butler on the contemporary reduction of Zionism
Butler begins stating that when people ask her are you a Zionist they mean, “Do you believe that the State of Israel has the right to exist?”
If you say, Well no I’m not a Zionist, that seems to imply on destruction of State of Israel. destruction of state meant to protect jewish people, you are in favour of destruction of Jews … the debate is impossible here.
Is Zionism the best political form to protect Jewish people,and for governing jews and palestinians?
You could be a Zionist prior to 1948, a cultural Zionist, renewal of jewish spirituality, renewal of people, understand Israel as a land but not necessarily as a state. Federated solution, commonwealth solution … It seems to me now, if you take the position of cultural zionism, you are considered an anti-zionist. Zionism has become: “Do you believe in the right of Israel to exist? This is what zionism has been reduced to. And it is a trap. Reduction of Zionism to this question. And this is an impoverished situation. Israel through 1967 you could be a left Zionism, cultural Zionist and debate about different solutions. Now if you make these arguments you are considered a threat to the people.
This question of whether there is a Palestinian partner, belongs to a discourse I don’t fully understand, implies Israel is already willing to be a partner. I think there are resistances to partnership on both sides and for different reasons.
There are different models of bi-nationalism already at work in the region, some are strange and sad. Settlers in West Bank depend on Palestinian labour. Occupier and occupied, lived near one another, depend on one another. What would bi-nationaism look like after the occupation, and after the entire project of settler colonialism comes to a halt. You need the end of occupation, so you can meet as EQUALS. Otherwise you ratify the colonial structure, yes we’ll be good colonial subjects etc.
We don’t know what the Palestinian political positions would look like post – Occupation. It would be a new political configuration.
Disaspora/Cohabitation
Diaspora: jews have scattered, lost their home, wait, long and struggle for return to home. That home has been understood as the nation of Zion, of Israel. But there is another strain in Judaism that accepts the diasporic, most of the Kabbalah, which means that we are not just as Jews scattered throughout the world, but we by necessity live with the non-jew in this scattered place. The diasporic affect is how jew and non-jew live together, in a common world that is neither Jewish nor non-Jewish, a meeting place, of various faiths, traditions, cultural formations. There is an Affects of cohabitation emerges from the diasporic condition becomes the actual ethos of Israel-Palestinine. A foundation of a new political ethos for Israel-Palestine. A Jewish affects of cohabitation that would be non-nationalist.
Jewish ethics of cohabitation, the experience of exile is precisely a condition in which one has a heightened sensitivity to others who are dispossessed, lost their homes, lost their homeland, who are speaking in a language not their own, without their basic rights. From the position of the exilic, that an ethics has emerged that has resulted in forms of Jewish socialism, Jewish internationalism, cultural zionism that have expressed an ethical commitment not just to Jews who are dispossessed, but to ALL THOSE who are dispossed This is a UNIVERSALISING gesture that emerges from the Jewish tradition, and historical tradition of EXHILE, including forced exhile from Spain, Russia. There is an ethics that emerges from expulsion and it is not necessarily a nationalist one.
How to live in the diaspora, how to live in this scattered way, how to live with others who are not necessarily Jewish. What kinds of obligation do we owe to those whom we share the earth.
1947-1948: Necessary cohabitation, not necessarily chosen, or ideal, but to have a border or link with another polity within a single state or 2 states, meant there had to be some sort of commitment to cohabitation. Arendt did not believe that Jews should have the demographic majority, there had to be equal rights for all inhabitants. The real question is whether a Zionism of cohabitation can re-emerge, or whether those in favour of cohabitation need to distance themselves from Zionism. It’s not about producing a perfect State, 2 state solution, bi-nationalism with 1 state or 2 states, etc. Its not about trying to produce an IDEAL state, its about accepting the necessity of living with others and having that unchosen proximity being the basis of ethical obligations to one another. THis is not just a problem with Israel-Palestine, but those who share borders, and history of conflict, the unchosen necessary character of living with others. I’m not talking about everyone loving each other.
When we think of Palestinian resistance to Israel, we could say that its anti-semitism, or destruction of state of Israel. But there other forms of resistance is seeking the end to colonial oppression, not to existence of Jewish population. The anti-colonial struggle is pledged to co-habitation and openly refutes anti-Semitism.
If the Occupation came to an end, and conditions of equal co-habitation were established, there would be greater possibilities for living in peace and security. Strengthening the Occupation, the Wall, the Palestinian people will resist these conditions. There are non-violent resistance which is what BSD is. I don’t think occupying other groups, or depriving other groups of their rights has ever made the occupier more safe.
The state of Israel, claims to be a state for Jewish refugees, especially after the WWII. It establishes a right of refugees for itself. The state of Israel at its founding produced close to 800,000 refugees. So if it believes in Right of Refugees the right of return and sanctuary, one wants to be able to stay, we need an int’l jurisprudence that will be internally consistent and be a solution to Palestinian refugees which now numbers 5 million. Acknowledge a serious dispossession took place in the name of producing a homeland for another group of refugees. This is a contradiction at the founding of Israel. This is not to say that Israel can’t right this wrong. There is an organization in Israel, made plans where would the Palestinians re-settle, made maps of all Palestinian villages destroyed, built monuments and memorials to those villages, and trying to reconstruct that history and produce an archive and trying to think what the practical dimensions of return will be.
I think the structure of Settler Colonialism needs to be changed. The boycott three principles 1) End the Occupation 2) Equal rights for non-Jewish Palestinian Israelis that make up 30% of Israeli citizens don’t have equal rights 3) Right of Return, it is an open question. it is a refugee problem. It should be put on the table and discussed. What can be done there?
What Edward Said thought which I find IMPORTANT, and made clear in his book on Moses and critique of Palestinian nationalism.
– The RETURN, not a return from the diaspora to homeland, but bring the principles of diaspora to the homeland, and ETHIC OF CO-HABITATION this is what he understood the return to be. There is a tradition of Zionism that confirms this, but have to bring the history of Zionism forward into a more contemporary debate.
– RETURN means binationalism outside the structure of settler colonialism
Question: Relation cohabitation and Zionism, which one is solution anti-Zionism or redefining Zionism back to its cultural form and federated state
59 minutes in video Answer: Kafka letter to Felice Bauer: What I really can’t stand are the Zionists, what I really can’t stand are the anti-Zionists.
I know there is a worry that the boycott singles out Israel, for its violation of human rights, and non-compliance with int’l law, and then there is another argument that says: Why is Israel always treated as exception to int’l law and human rights. I don’t want to enter that argument. For me it’s hard for Israel to claim that it represents the Jewish people. No, not all the Jewish people, not all the diaspora, not even all the Jewish Israelis, its a complicated situation. I do think what the boycott does, it produces an int’l community that demands that the state of Israel complies with int’l law and does not hold itself above the law. Pressures manufactures and cultural institutions, the boycott becomes the means by which an int’l movement is formed. IT is the largest non-violent movement seeking to hold Israel to int’l law. I don’t support targeting individual Israelis.
For those who believe that the only way to fight anti-semitism is to support the state of Israel. Then any critique of Israel is to embrace anti-semitism. This is a prison house, and there is no way out. They are many different kind of Jewish people, they are not singly and exclusively represented by the state of Israel, we are complex creatures with a diverse set of viewpoints. The presumption that the state of Israel represents the Jewish life, viewpoint. A great number of Jews accept its role, are fundamentally committed to Israel. But we must let the Jews be complex. Even diasporic Jews that support Israel, have disagreements with its politics. If anything comes out of these discussions, I would hope that it is the insight that the Jewish people have internal differences and are a complexity.
1:22 minutes
That said, it would be an entire mistake if entire conversation of Palestine or Co-habitation took place within an intra-Jewish context. Because that would mean that Jewish framework becomes the dominant framework for thinking the problem of Palestine. That framework has to be displaced not effaced or erased, but a decentering of Jewish perspective has to happen for Co-habitation to be thinkable. So I speak awkwardly as a Jew, at the same time I can’t allow that identity to be the only way to think ethically and politically, I have to allow myself to become decentered to have an ethical relationship to others and to participate in a democratic way of life.
This requires a decentering of my identity so there is an absolute necessity for an intra-Jewish discussion and there is also a limit to what its usefulness can be.
It matters to me that the commandments are spoken, and they are delivered through a mode of Address. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. is something one can only hear or obey if the conditions for hearing are first established. Even the commandment Thou shalt not kill, demands either that I understand the language in which the commandment is given or that the conditions of audability are established. WHat the commandment comes in a language I don’t understand, or I don’t hear it, or if there is no media to relay the commandment to me. It doesn’ t have to be a spoken voice, a picture or a sound (Levinas thought it could be a sound). What it means is that a certain problem of translation, of media, of establishing the conditions of audibility is there for the reception of the commandment and the struggle to comply with the commandment.
We are all called upon in certain ways, that there are ethical obligations that are addressed to us, this is an important Levinasian way of thinking the commandment, then I’m also saying that there is a theological/political struggle to figure out my responsibility and how do I respond to such a call. It is not that I am called at the expense of others, We are all called. And yet it seems to me that there is a great deal of noise that keeps us from hearing, and fear that keeps us from acting and responding, but it’ll be a great loss of if we lose our responsiveness and our responsibility. So yes there is a theological dimension to my thinking of ethics.