Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide

American philosopher and gender studies scholar Judith Butler was recently interviewed by The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain. In this interview, Butler shares her perspective on the growing protests taking place on U.S. college campuses and universities against the Israeli government’s ongoing genocidal violence against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Butler also shares her thoughts on the meaning of academic freedom.

I find it to be a very worthwhile interview; perhaps you will too. Following is an excerpt.

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Very often when it comes to Israel–Palestine, we hear people say, “Well, it’s so complex.” I think for many of the young people, it’s not that complex. This is a genocidal violence being enacted against the Palestinian people in Gaza. And it is obvious and it is clear, and they have the footage and they circulate the footage and they know it.

They’re also reading: They’re getting the history of Zionism. They’re getting the history of occupation. They’re getting the history of Gaza. They’re learning online and in seminars and in their own colleges. And the mobilization is born of an unequivocal conviction – not just that the bombardments and killings, the loss now of over 34,000 Palestinian lives is horrific. Not just that, but the history of Zionism, the history of occupation, the structure of apartheid within the state of Israel, the fact that Palestinians remain stateless or living within administrative authorities that do not have full state powers and do not represent full political self-determination. And that even now, Palestinians who live within the state of Israel, within its current boundaries, they also are suffering harassment, violence, and second-class citizenship in many different ways.

I think that there is a broad educational effort happening here. And I like the fact that education is being mixed with activism because activism should be informed. And sometimes we see ill-informed instances, like somebody yelling, “Jews go back to Poland.” No, that’s not acceptable.

What does the liberation of Palestine mean? What does it look like? Well, in my view, it means that Palestinians and Jews and other inhabitants of that land will find a way to live together. Either next to each other or with one another, under conditions of radical equality, where occupation is dismantled and all the colonial structures associated with occupation is dismantled.

It doesn’t mean pushing Jews off the land. It does mean, in my mind and in many people’s minds, the taking down of settlements and the redistribution of that land to Palestinians who lived there. And it does mean, in my mind and in the mind of many others, a just way of thinking about the right of return for Palestinians who have suffered forcible exile and who wish to return to the lands or at least to the region, or to have compensation or acknowledgment for what they have suffered.

. . . [W]hat’s behind the slogan [“Free Palestine”]? . . . Yes, I want to free Palestine from colonization, from bombardment violence, from settlements, from military and police detention. I want to see freedom from all of those things. But then we also have to ask: Freedom to do what? What will freedom look like? How will it be organized? How will people live together in a free Palestine, or in a free Palestine–Israel, whatever it may be called, or in two states who will have to have a negotiated agreement or a federated model?

A lot of people have been thinking about this for a long time, so I think I would like to see more seminars in the street, seminars on college campuses that try to take apart the slogans – distinguish the hateful slogans, the ignorant ones, the antisemitic ones from those that are actually helping to realize justice and freedom and equality in that land.

So if we were to have another public seminar on these campuses where everybody is assembled, it should surely be on academic freedom as well. Academic freedom means that educators have a right to teach what they want, to build their own curriculum, to express their ideas without the interference of state and without the interference of donors.

But I think that’s also collapsing right now as donors, we see at Columbia University, are making threats to withdraw funds, that also happened at Harvard and elsewhere. Also state powers, governments pressuring universities to suppress the rights of speech and assembly that their students have. These are forms of interference in university and college environments that ought properly to be protected from that interference. That is what academic freedom is.

– Judith Butler
Excerpted from “Judith Butler Will Not Co-Sign
Israel’s Alibi for Genocide”
The Intercept
May 1, 2024

Related Off-site Links:
Campus Crackdown: 300+ Arrested in Police Raids on Columbia and CCNY to Clear Gaza Encampments – Democracy Now! (May 1, 2024).
“Are We in a Police State?” Progressives Demand End to Crackdown on Campus Protests – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, May 1, 2024).
The Biden Administration's Hypocrisy on College Protests Must End – Edward Ahmed Mitchell and Shafiquil Mushna (Common Dreams, May 1, 2024).
Israeli Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov on Campus Protests, Weaponizing Antisemitism, and Silencing Dissent – Democracy Now! (April 30, 2024).
Holocaust Survivor Tells Student Anti-Genocide Protesters: “Just Keep Doing It” – Bret Wilkins (Common Dreams, April 25, 2024).
Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU, and Yale – Democracy Now! (April 23, 2024).
“Collective Punishment”: As Gaza Assault Continues, Israel Ramps Up Violence in Occupied West Bank – Democracy Now! (April 22, 2024).
“Obvious Evidence of Genocide”: Mass Grave Discovered in Gaza’s Nasser Hospital – Olivia Rosane (Common Dreams,April 21, 2024).
The Memory of the Holocaust Is Abused by Zionists as a “Weapon”: An Interview with Norman Finkelstein – TRT World (April 19, 2024).
Nicaragua Takes Germany to the World Court for Facilitating Israel’s Genocide – Marjorie Cohn (TruthOut, April 13, 2024).
“Genocidal Actions” Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and U.S. Weapons Flow – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, April 12, 2024).
Journalist Abby Martin Explains Why She Considers Israel’s Actions in Gaza to Constitute Genocide – Middle East Eye (April 3, 2024).
Briahna Joy Gray Unpacks IDF Lies About the Slaughter of World Central Kitchen Aid Workers in Gaza – Rising (April 3, 2024).
“A War Machine Out of Control”: Israel Keeps Attacking Aid Workers as Gaza Faces Famine – Democracy Now! (April 3, 2024).
Draft U.N, Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, March 25, 2024).
As Israel Blocks More U.N. Aid, Gaza Is on the Brink of “Most Intense Famine” Since WW2 – Democracy Now! (March 25, 2024).
“Children Are Dying”: Doctor Just Back from Gaza Describes Severe Malnutrition and Preventable Infections – Democracy Now! (March 22, 2024).
U.N. Panel Says IDF Appears Set on “Physical Destruction of Palestinian Children” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, March 22, 2024).
There Is No Moral Argument That Justifies the Sale of Weapons to Israel – Mary Lawlor (The Guardian, March 21, 2024).
Former U.S. Diplomat Says “Collaboration” in Gaza Genocide Could Make Biden “Target of Prosecution” – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, March 21, 2024).
The West Is Complicit in Israel’s Genocide – Yanis Varoufakis amd Raoul Martinez (Novara Media, February 17, 2024).
Why Must Palestinians Audition for Your Empathy? – Hala Alyan (Salt Lake Tribune, October 29, 2023).

UPDATES: Biden Condemned for Ahistorical and “Politically Suicidal” Attack on Campus Protests – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, May 2, 2024).
On Kent State Massacre Anniversary, Progressives Decry Repression of Student Protests – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, May 4, 2024).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
• Outrage and Despair
• “This Is a Genocidal Project”
• “A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
• Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
• Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
• Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
• Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
• Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
• Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
• Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
• In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
• Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
• Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
• Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
• “Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’”
• “The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
• Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
• Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
• Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
• For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
• Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
• David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014