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Discussant Butler in the Paris suburb of Pantin: “At least have a debate”

Photo: Martin Noda / Hans Lucas / picture alliance

The discussion should actually have taken place in December.

Judith Butler has been a kind of “guest intellectual of the house” at the Pompidou Center since September for the 2023/24 season and spends a lot of time in Paris.

But the event entitled “Against anti-Semitism, its instrumentalization and for revolutionary peace in Palestine,” at which the US philosopher was supposed to speak, was banned by the Paris mayor at the time.

The event, organized by radical left-wing and post-colonial groups, took place on Sunday in the Paris suburb of Pantin.

Butler was there - world-famous as the founder of gender studies; she was responsible for the revolutionary idea that gender is essentially performative.

That we are not children of our biological bodies, but rather our bodies bear cultural symbols.

But at the round in Pantin she appeared as a person with a Jewish family background who opposes Zionism.

In a press conference before the event, she argued that the anti-Semitism that she also experiences again and again prevents many Jews from criticizing the "genocide" (according to Butler) that Israel is committing.

The panel organizers also included two “decolonial,” pro-Palestinian Jewish organizations – the UJFP and the Tsedek collective!

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The media organization "Paroles d'Honneur" organized a livestream of the event - but three days later, the recording of the entire discussion is no longer accessible on YouTube or Twitch.

The website of "Paroles d'Honneur" is in "maintenance mode" on Wednesday morning.

Therefore, central statements that Judith Butler made at the event on Sunday afternoon can only be reconstructed using an excerpt posted on X (formerly Twitter).

The French newspaper “Le Figaro” has already quoted the statements.

Three MPs from the French left-wing party La France Insoumise took part in the event, according to a European parliamentarian.

According to the video clip, Judith Butler said people can have different views on Hamas and armed resistance.

But it is more honest and historically accurate to say: “The October 7 uprising was an act of armed resistance.

It is not a terrorist attack and it is not an anti-Semitic attack."

According to Butler, she "didn't like" this attack on Israelis, expressed it publicly and got into trouble because of it: "It was tormenting for me, it was terrible." But there wasn't just violence against Israel, it had been happening for decades Palestinians violence.

In this respect, October 7th was an uprising from a position of oppression against a violent state apparatus.

If you describe the attack as "armed resistance," you can "at least have a debate," continued Butler, to applause from the audience, "whether it is the right strategy."

However, the philosopher sees the problem that anyone who speaks of “armed resistance” is immediately seen as someone who supports “armed resistance” and also advocates “this tactic of armed resistance”.

This needs to be discussed.

“Finally lost” or “political realism”?

The excerpt had been viewed over five million times on X by midday on Wednesday.

It caused strong reactions in Germany on Tuesday.

The art historian Jörg Scheller wrote: "There is nothing to contextualize here (...) Anyone who wonders how the left could slip into terror again and again, contrary to its ideals - exactly like that." "You are looking into an abyss," commented the columnist Jan Fleischhauer.

The journalist Martin Debes thinks: “This means that Judith Butler is finally lost” and asks himself: “Why didn’t she say ‘partisan struggle’ straight away?”

The “FAZ” columnist Patrick Bahners spoke in defense of Butler’s statements.

"She remains consistent in a political realism that enables ethical disputes and does not declare them irrelevant in advance," he wrote: "She is simply a philosopher" who strives "for logic, analysis and realism as prerequisites for a moral and political judgment." .

The writer Mithu Sanyal asked a “stupid question: What is the difference between armed resistance and terrorism?

I thought they were synonyms, just from different perspectives."

In France, Butler's statements apparently resulted in a planned event at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure being canceled.

Judith Butler was supposed to speak at the university on March 6th and 13th about grief and the “weeping” of life.

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