[Buddha-l] Zionism and Marxism?

jkirk jkirk at spro.net
Fri Sep 22 12:25:13 MDT 2006


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: jkirk 
  To: Buddhist discussion forum 
  Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 11:57 AM
  Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Zionism and Marxism?



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Eric Nelson" <esnels at gmail.com>


  > Since off-topic discussions continue, I will add a few things:

  > ..........One should also distinguish those who criticize Israel for particular
  > practices, such as land expansion and removing people from their
  > homes, from calling for the destruction of the state and its people.
  > Otherwise, a number of Israelis are antisemitic and it seems everyone
  > except neoconservatives would be "anti-semitic." ...............
  ====================================
  It's worth reading a thoughtful but extensive commentary on this issue by the well-known writer Judith Butler, herself a Jew, as publshed in the _London Review of Books_, vol. 25:16,  21 August 2003, titled 
  "No, it's not anti-semitic".  http://tinyurl.com/nbt8g 

  Joanna
  ================
  Since many on the list might not read Butler's entire article, here is her concluding text. My posting her article link and this text is not to be understood as support for remarks made by the Iranian president, who IMO is crazy, and with whom those Iranians I happen to know about disagree but cannot express such disagreement in Iran today, which has shut down papers and magazines that disagree with official policies as well as persecuting people who disagree.
  I offer this in support of my position that Israel's policies toward Palestinians can and must be criticized by anyone who cares about justice. Having offered this, I intend to say no more on list, anyway, about this issue:

  Butler wrote: 
  "What is needed is a public space in which such issues might be thoughtfully debated, and to prevent that space being defined by certain kinds of exclusion and censorship. If one can't voice an objection to violence done by Israel without attracting a charge of anti-semitism, then that charge works to circumscribe the publicly acceptable domain of speech, and to immunise Israeli violence against criticism. One is threatened with the label 'anti-semitic' in the same way that one is threatened with being called a 'traitor' if one opposes the most recent US war. Such threats aim to define the limits of the public sphere by setting limits on the speakable. The world of public discourse would then be one from which critical perspectives would be excluded, and the public would come to understand itself as one that does not speak out in the face of obvious and illegitimate violence."

  Judith Butler teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. _Precarious Life: Powers of Mourning and Violence_ and _Undoing Gender_ have both been published this year.

  Joanna

   


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  buddha-l mailing list
  buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
  http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  No virus found in this incoming message.
  Checked by AVG Free Edition.
  Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.6/453 - Release Date: 9/20/2006
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20060922/fb35ef7a/attachment.html


More information about the buddha-l mailing list